I guess my coach didn't believe how bad I had to sh*t when I told him before the race. He wasn't the type to care about points in duel meets. BUT, he wanted to see me go up against a kid from a school in our league.
The race was only 800 meters, so what the hell, I can hold off. I asked the kid what his plan was. We were running a duel meet, after all. Kid tells me he's not going crazy, just aiming for 2:08, even splits.
Now, I was much better than this kid (1:57 guy, he was ~2:02). So, what the hell, I'll chill, run a couple 64s, and outkick this kid in the last 20m.
Either he lied, or he just felt too good to ease up. I like to believe the latter, because it's a b*tch move to lie about strategy in a duel meet.
Regardless, this kid is running out of his mind. Goes through in 62 and begins pushing from there. He's definitely envisioning a PR. And a win.
But I was a prideful young man. No frigging way am I losing to this chump, no matter how bad my bowels feel.
Approaching the final curve, I'm behind about 10 meters. When I say I dropped the hammer, I mean I DROPPED THE HAMMER. Pushing down the final straight, my feet were barely touching the ground and my flamboyant long hair was flowing hard. All the while I'm clinching my abdominal muscles as hard as I can, to prevent pooping myself.
It was a weird feeling, when I finally let loose. About 5 meters from the line, I've got the win wrapped up, and am actually gonna come across in about 1:58 (not too shabby for a 1:57 guy in a duel meet). Unfortunately, my muscles all relaxed at once, against my will of course. I feel the splat of wet, liquidy, butt juice against the lining of my shorts. And the smell was putrid.
After crossing the line, I ran straight to a porto-john, wiped out my shorts as much as possible, sanitized the crap outta my hands (pun intended) and returned to my team.
I see the kid a couple weeks later at the league championship, and he just smiles at me from across the track. He knew. He knew that although he was not better than me, he had proven himself a worthy opponent. Many runners experienced my thunderous hammer drops. But not many were lucky enough to say they caused me to soil myself. I salute that young man. And to this day, I wonder how his glorious moral victory has carried him through life.