New York City Marathon - A Restroom Plan Can Reduce Worry A raceday outfit. A prerace meal. A playlist. A warm-up routine. And there is one more thing runners obsess over but are often too shy to discuss in public: making sure that digestive issues have been dealt with. "If you don't address it or wing it then that's when you lose valuable time in the marathon," John Honerkamp, chief coach for New York Road Runners, said. It is a vital part of any proper prerace routine, said Adam Banks, chief executive of NY SportsMed, a sports therapy practice. Carrying that extra weight with you for 26 miles is extremely uncomfortable. That's why 1,750 portable restrooms, from A Royal Flush, are placed at the start of the New York City Marathon. "A lot of runners laugh about it, but a really important component to having a good race is doing your prerace business," said Beth Risdon, a running coach and running blogger. "I think many, many runners have found themselves in the middle of a race or training run where they really honestly don't know what to do," she said. "A lot of people feel kind of alone in that and it's important to dialogue about it that because we've all kind of been there," Risdon said. The prerace restroom routine is also about avoiding the horror stories - tales of runners who do not make it to the next portable restroom or athletes who add minutes to their finishing time thanks to an unplanned visit to one. Risdon said such occurrences are part of a shared runner experience. It's really natural given the sport of running. The most important thing is to remedy that and to minimize the risk of that happening. So how do runners ensure that everything is taken care of before a race? It is a question Honerkamp said he receives almost every day by e-mail. "Usually I get in parentheses, "Sorry for asking this" or "This is an embarrassing question," ," he said. "When they do ask it's rare that you don't get a smiley face or an "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm asking this." But it is important. Risdon advises meticulously watching nutrition during training. "I think the predominant thing to pay attention to is diet," she said. The best thing for someone who is training for their first race is to experiment, just like we do with clothing and hydration, to see what works with our body and what doesn't. Because many New York City marathoners come up on their final long run before a much-deserved taper period, drastically reducing their mileage in the weeks before the race, it is time for race nutrition trial and error. Runners aim to find prerace fuel that will wake up the gastrointestinal tract and keep lactic-acid-filled legs moving, Banks said. He recently spoke to a client about facilitating the prerace routine, saying: "We talked about taking a laxative enema, but decided that none of that was good. So hopefully a few cups of coffee would do the trick. "Simulate the morning of the race before the race," Jay Hachadoorian, head running coach at NY SportsMed, said. Run your last long run with the shoes you're going to run in and the gear you'll run in. Same thing with food. If you aren't going into the marathon with a nutrition plan, you are going in unprepared. Risdon advises keeping a particularly fastidious approach to diet immediately before the marathon, saying "Watch what you eat the three days before a race, it can make a big difference on raceday." Undoubtedly the goal for most runners is to finish the race without a bathroom break. But Hachadoorian tells his runners to prepare for gastrointestinal setbacks. "Bring a wet wipe; you're a more confident runner when you feel clean after using the Porta-Potty," he said. You never know what condition a Porta-Potty will be in when you get to it. Tom Therkildsen of the Road Runners events team said there would be 2,450 portable restrooms available to athletes. He said the New York City Marathon has the second most portable restrooms per event in the nation, after the Rose Bowl. Jessie Lavintman, a half-marathon runner who lives in Minnesota, might have said it best. If you can win in the bathroom, you can win in the race.