I apologize in advance for the gross topic, but I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and if so how did you cure it?

I've always had digestive problems while running - this is part of the reason I like cycling so much more! The only time I don't have problems is if I haven't eaten anything or taken in much fluid the day of the run, and if I haven't eaten much in the days prior. Obviously, this is not good from the fueling aspect of things. Now that I am cycling and about to embark for 1/2 marathon training, I can't get away with skimping on the nutrition like that.

So, yesterday was my first run in well over a month. I ate hot cereal in the morning and pooped about 30 minutes later. Ate chicken and beef at lunch and again pooped about 30 minutes later. About 2 hrs. prior to my run (jog) I ate two rice cakes with cashew/macadamia nut butter and fruit spread. Right before heading out I pooped again. Set out on my jog. About a mile into it, had that old, familiar feeling of needing to poop! Unfortunately, there were no potty stops along my route and I was afraid to go in the bushes (poison ivy and snakes). I kept going and as the run wore on felt as though I might have gone a bit in my underwear - yuck! About one hour and six miles later I was certain of this. I walked in my front door and could smell it - UGH!

Went into the bathroom and pulled down my shorts to find a good amount of bloody diarrhea. Sat on the toilet and more blood came out. Bagged up the underwear in a ziploc, took a shower, and headed to Urgent Care. As they were about to close, they took a CBC blood draw and prescribed two heavy-duty antibiotics (Cipro and Flagyl) and told me to follow up with my primary doc today. I have an appointment later this morning. In the meantime, I had a small, solid poop this morning with what appeared to be a blood clot (about a 1/4 of the size of the poop) stuck to it. Other than that, I didn't go again during the night or this morning.

So, I am freaking out here because the symptoms that got my aunt in the hospital on Thanksgiving 2005 was bloody stool and vomiting blood. The next day she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had speread to her liver and she died in early February 2006.

However, a Google search last night revealed that diarrhea and bloody diarrhea is an occurance in distance runners. Come on though, six miles is not enough to be considered "distance" training is it?

Any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.