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How far would you go to set a record? Well, maybe not a world record, but most definitely a personal best record.
To what length would you allow yourself to go in order to achieve the result you wanted?
For some people, like Tamara Torlakson, the threshold on what she was willing to accept from herself in terms of challenges while she attempted to set a personal best was much higher than the average person, as she proved when she crossed a finish line having pooped herself mid-marathon and continued on.
In the 2018 Mountains 2 Beach Marathon, which begins in Ojai, California and ends on the Ventura Coast, Torlakson realized she would be ruining her progress if she stopped to take a mid-marathon bathroom break.
"Training was going really well, I knew I was in really good shape," she said.
So she knew what she had to do when she felt the rumbling of her tummy midway through the race.
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
"I thought, 'I don't know if it's possible to poop while running, but I will try'," Torlakson said, her decision made.
"I didn't want one poop to mess it all up."
She managed to get it out, and she kept it there—in her shorts—for 13 more miles, until she set her own personal best record, with a 3 hour and 7 minute marathon.
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
After crossing the finish line, she took some baby wipes from the medical tent and went to get cleaned up in a nearby porta-potty.
Torlakson ended up beating her own personal best by one minute and 20 seconds: which was quite a feat, considering she was only 13 months postpartum.
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
@tamaratorlakson/Instagram
Torlakson had one point of clarification, though.
"[The] Headline makes it sound like it was a log, it was not!!!!" she wrote in her original post.
"Also, this was the first and only time this happened, let's keep it that way!"
Torlakson still runs and is training for a half-marathon at present.