2nd Post: Does an Endurance Rider Pee in the Woods?

Yes, I Have Stories about Peeing Too 

OK, so we all know that Peeing in the woods is an inconvenient necessity of endurance riding.  I've even heard people complain how riders lose all sense of modesty in the heat (literally) of competition.  When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.  If you've done the Tevis, you know that the California Loop, which isn't a loop at all, but a long stretch between 70 miles out, to 85 miles, that seems much longer and harder than it is, due to the collective fatigue of having done all three deep canyons, and pretty much the worst part of the ride up until then.  It's where tired riders fall asleep on their horses and slide off, or worse, where a few unlucky horses have gone over the side and down the canyon.  Most survive but a couple have not.  

I was making good time along this one year, in the daylight mostly, with two well known riders, Nick Warhol and Karen Chaton.  So we stopped occasionally at creek crossings to water the horses, and of course to pee.  The first time we both asked Nick to "turn around!" while we squatted on the trail.  At the second stop, Nick was ahead of us and said, "turn around!" to Karen and  I.  I looked at  him slightly uphill from us on the trail and said, "No!, you just turn around!  Your outnumbered!"  And he chuckled foolishly and did.  

But the best one I've heard was at the Oakland Hills 50 in N. California.  A group of ladies who were all friends, were all riding the ride together.  They decided at one point to stop and take a community pee as girls are wont to do, whether in public restrooms or outdoors, as in this case.  So they all stopped in the wide trail, got off, and with the horses on the outside of the circle, got in a group, all holding their reins and had a group squat.  As they were all happily peeing away, one of the horses started down the trail towards camp, apparently loose because the owner thought someone else was holding him.  With that, she stood up, tights at her ankles, and started penguin walking as fast as she could after her horse, bare, tattooed butt jiggling as she ran!  Needless to say, around the campfire that night, they all couldn't stop laughing about it.  

But I have one more.  This is with a very well know woman, who was a two term president of AERC, who won a bronze medal at age 60 in Barcelona, Spain.  None other than Maggie Price!  She was a character with a southern drawl, and a top rider who had fun.  When I met her, she was out West on an extended trip from one ride to another hitting the Race of Champions, the Tevis, and a bunch of 50's.  I met her at Drakesbay, which happened to be the first 50 I ever did at Pt. Reyes Seashore in the 70's, a ride we all sorely miss. 

She got out a bunch of photos from all her rides, after inviting me over for grits and breakfast the day after the ride.  I'm looking through them and she's describing where she was, when I notice one of her holding her reins out on the trail next to her horse, smiling away, in that familiar squat position.  I wouldn't have thought anything about it, it just looked like she was resting, until I noticed the  little stream  between her legs.  I said, "Maggie, look at this!"  Her jaw dropped and she yelled, "OK who took this??!"