The past 5 months -- what's happened to me since Austin?

As most of you could probably tell, the past several months -- ever since the Austin Marathon in February -- have been a difficult time for me. I think I made the mistake of not taking enough rest after Austin. I was in great shape, and I didn't want to stop. I figured I would be able to keep climbing higher and higher without letting anything hold me back. However, I learned the importance of taking a break the hard way.

Here is a recap of the two big problems I've been dealing with:

1) In March, I caught some sort of stomach bug in Argentina, and even after taking Cipro and Metro (anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic drugs), my stomach is still not back to normal. I saw a GI doctor a few weeks ago, and he said it is possible that my stomach lining is still irritated as a result of the stomach bug, even if the stomach bug is now gone. He took a bunch of blood tests, but hasn't provided any other advice yet (he did give me a prescription for a pill that I can try to take before I race to slow down my digestive system, but I'm not sure how I feel about taking that). Anyway, I guess I'll find out the test results soon. I hope they are informative. I've always had a sensitive stomach, and I'm beginning to think that I might just be allergic to something that I eat all the time such as dairy, wheat, etc. Maybe I'll start keeping track of what I eat in my running log to help me determine what's going on. If any of you have any thoughts or advice, please let me know!

2) In April, my right hip-flexor started to bother me. It got so bad that for an entire week, I could hardly even walk on it because it hurt so much. Nothing I did seemed to help it get better other than taking rest, but I didn't want to take rest. So I got a bunch of massage therapy and physical therapy, and tried to (cross)train through it during the month of May. It wasn't until June that I finally realized that the only thing I could do was to take time completely off from running. I've gone on a few easy runs over the past week, and the hip is actually feeling a lot better, so I think that taking a month off might have done the trick. I guess only time will tell though...

So that's the recap. I still need to figure out the GI issues, but I think my hip is going to be okay. And as long as the hip is okay, I can start running again, even if I do have to make a few extra pit stops on the way until I get my GI issues worked out.

So, with all of that said, I'll start the daily posts once again. Hope that things aren't too boring for people as I slowly get back into it...