Stupid knees

Well, seems my string of running knee pain free has come to an end, for now at least.  Last week saw me crank out 64km, the most I've run in a week since doing XC at UWO in 2003.  I did more than half of that on the road and it's taken its toll on my poor knees.

I went out last night for an easy 11km run on the trails by our place and through the run I had a constant discomfort, but nothing too distressing.  I'm now sitting at my work desk and my knees are a little on fire.  I've been neglecting my physio exercises a little, but I've picked those back up this past weekend and hopefully that will help. Guess I've learned not to ignore them. I think it may also be time for me to start taping my knee again, but this time around it seems like both my knees hurt. sigh.

Its times like these that make me doubt my reasons for running. Is this type of pain worth the ultimate gain? I've had a nearly exponential increase in mileage since June of 2010:

So this is my attempt at getting things sorted out. I am clearly abusing my body and it's responding by crying.  Maybe I should do a thing or two to make sure this doesn't come back:

• Return to my daily physio exercises
• Return to my physiotherapist for more advice/exercises
• Continue to ice nightly
• Tape my knee until the pain goes away
• Reduce my mileage
• Try and run on trails as much as possible
• Stay away from racing road races
• Work on my posture, both sitting and standing
• Massage therapy

I need to be more attentive to the items above. If I have knee pain, I can't run. If I can't run, I get crabby. We don't want that.  GOTTA STICK WITH IT!