Who keeps pooping on my lawn? The case of the marathon miscreant and running’s dirtiest secret
One morning about five years ago, I was making coffee at my family home when I noticed something strange outside the kitchen window.
A hunched-over figure. Athletic shorts bunched around ankles. Sneakers firmly planted in the grass. For a moment, my groggy brain couldn’t put the pieces together. Then it registered: a woman was defecating on our front lawn.
It wasn’t exactly a secluded spot. She was in full view of neighboring homes in our leafy Connecticut suburb, and just steps away from a main road frequented by dog walkers and parents pushing strollers.
After finishing her business, the mystery woman jogged away — a little lighter on her feet. Left behind for my dad to dispose of with a shovel was the evidence: a pile of human waste and a few wet wipes.
For years afterward, my family retold the story of the “pooping runner,” laughing about the woman who relieved herself in broad daylight beneath our dogwood tree. We assumed it was a weird, one-time thing. But then, this month, it happened again. The same woman, the same patch of grass.
“I was at the kitchen sink this morning to witness our pooping visitor,” my mom texted me on Oct. 13.
This time, she went outside to speak to the woman, asking if she needed anything and where she’d left the mess. “She pointed to the tree and said ‘it will go away,’” my mom said.
“Not even an apology,” she added.
The second incident left me with a question I never thought I’d ponder: How often are joggers just…dropping trou out in the open?
After speaking to runners and exploring remote corners of social media, I discovered there are more than a handful of dump-and-dashers living among us. When nature calls mid-run, these people answer. Hiking trails, backyards, graveyards and busy roadways have been used as make-shift commodes.
“If I can be vulnerable, I had to go when I was running in Central Park the other day…I had to sprint into the woods…It was a dire situation,” a friend, who is training for the New York City Marathon and asked not to be named, told me.
Social media, meanwhile, is awash with vivid confessionals.
“I think it’s safe to assume I’ve fertilized more than half of the bushes in my town. I wish I were joking,” a Reddit user wrote in a running thread earlier this year. “I once had diarrhea in a garbage can on the Brooklyn Bridge,” another added.
The topic has sparked heated debate in the running community. Many are unbothered by the mid-run squat — provided runners are discreet and clean up afterward — arguing it’s preferable to soiling oneself. Others find the practice altogether revolting.
