Side Stitches while running/walking

BrunetteRunner87

So I've been running fairly seriously for 5 months now and I've gotten fairly decent at it. Last week I did a turkey trot on thanksgiving, and I only ran lightly a couple days. When I ran on Sunday, I got an awful side cramp, but thought maybe I didn't wait enough time after eating. Tuesday I ran fine. Thursday I ran 3 miles at 8 min per mile, then the last two miles I was in agony around 9:30 per mile because I had the awful side cramp again and it felt like someone was stabbing me.

I started running again Sunday - 6 miles - and the cramp came back. Last night I ran 4 miles and it was back on the other side. This morning, 4 miles/fartlek runs and it hurt on both sides. Sometimes it hurts while I'm just walking too. Also, I've gone from running 8 minute miles to now 10 minute miles, and I don't know if it's completely because of the cramps or if I'm just slow now for some reason.

I was hoping the cramps would go away, but they haven't. I've tried looking it up online and it just says when you're in better shape they'll go away, but I'm in the best shape of my life and it doesn't make sense that they just would have started last week.
How can I get rid of them? And why have I started running so slow suddenly?

mdcoug

Funny, I've always gotten side stitches, but recently I've been able to run w/o and I'm certainly far from being in great shape. A friend of mine posted something a while back about it, and while I can't find that article, this one is pretty much the same from what I remember:

http://running.about.com/od/runningforbeginners/f/sidestitch.htm