The urge

Manage? I don't think you should manage it, but get it fixed!

This is not medical advice, but assuming you haven't got anything going on like a bladder infection or prostatitis, you are probably "suffering" either from Over-Wind-up Syndrome (highly technical term), or you have a core muscle/pelvic floor weakness. Or both.

Over-Wind-up Syndrome means you are just getting TOO psyched for your own good. Conventional wisdom has it than when you wound up for a race or a run, you invoive the fight or flight "stress" response and the sympathetic nervous system kicks in to shut off stuff we don't need -- like digestion and urination. Ha! What the textbooks don't tell you is that FIRST the stress response makes you dump everything not wanted on voyage -- which is why there are huge lines for the Portaloos at every race. So it MAY be that you just need to learn mental tricks to suck it up and shut it off for good and all after your final pre-exercise "voiding". Isn't this fun?

Possibility number two is that it's nothing to do with the stress response at all, but is more due to weak and/or imbalanced muscles in the core and pelvic floor leading to a lack of control over your bladder. Similar to what women can go through post-childbirth, when they are encouraged to do "Kegels", or specific pelvic floor exercises to tighten stuff back up again.

There's a type of exercise-induce "incontinence" (horrible word, isn't it?) that occurs sometimes in women doing high-impact exercise, where the impact almost literally pounds urine out of the bladder and makes them "leak". It may be that the impact of running is having a similar effect on you. You can fix this with the right exercises -- simply Google for "pelvic floor exercises" or "Kegel" and add "men" (if you are a man!).

If you ARE a man, then these exercises won't work if you have any prostate issues. If you are a man you will get an extra bonus from doing them.

If this issue gets resolved for you, you should post back and let us know what did it. I'd be really interested in the result.

My biggest issue in races is the phantom urge to pee. Not the real one... the fake one.