Achy breaky knee

An update is long overdue on my part. The past week has just been a little frustrating and so giving a recap wasn't exactly at the top of my to-do list. Last week, after a nice and easy 4 mile run, my knee began to hurt. I ran that morning and after sitting at work all day it started to feel stiff, and walking -- especially up and down stairs -- became an unpleasant task. I tried stretching it out and icing it down when I got home, which helped momentarily but not fully. The next morning I woke up early and got ready to run 5 miles. My knee felt a little uncomfortable, but nothing terrible; I figured it would go away once I got warmed up and started moving. After a mile it started to hurt. After another quarter mile even more. I though to myself, "Just push through it, the pain will go away". No such luck. Just shy of two miles i was reduced to a limp, running through the park hardly able to bend my leg. I'm sure I was a site to behold, trying to swing my left leg in front of me rather than run like a normal human . OK there was a problem. Discouraged I walked back home, stretched it out, iced it, etc.

That day I didn't exactly walk, but gimped around. Well that can't be good. Now I decided to give running a rest for a couple days and let it recover. I took a trip to Rite-Aid and dropped $50 on knee and pain products. I bought myself an ACE knee brace, a hot/cold wrap, and a bottle of 1,000 aspirin. The next day the ol' knee was slightly improved, and by Sunday it felt alright again. Still a little sore, but I wasn't limping so I gave it another shot. Again, after one mile, it began to hurt again, but this time I decided not to push it, cut my losses and walked home. For the past week I kept did no running, but tried to figure out why my knee was so f'd up.

There are two main things that I think have been causing it:

1. I may need different shoes. After looking at my running soles and checking out my foot I realized that I have a high arch, more than normal. This causes my stride to land on the outside of the foot and then my foot/ankle kind of turns inward after impact. That can't be good on the knees. I'm gonna get myself to a good running store, see if my self diagnosis is correct, and if so what they recommend.
2. I tried to do too many miles too quickly that first week of training. I went from running about 12 miles a week to trying to do 25. As my friend Mike pointed out, its best to stick to the 10% rule -- increasing weekly mileage by only 10% each week. i.e. increasing it by 100% was probably not a good idea. I think for the next two weeks I'll concentrate on short runs, about 3-4 miles, four times per week. I'll see how that feels and then start increasing my mileage. This means I may fall behind my mileage pace to get up to marathon length, but I'd rather keep my knees healthy and at worst I have to settle for doing the half-marathon. Not the end of the world.

UPDATE: Well after giving a go at this 3-miles at a time plan, I've had not so promising results. The knee felt a little uncomfortable from the start but no serious pain. I made it about 2 miles and then the pain set in. I went another quarter mile felt some sharp pains and then stopped, stretched, and took a slightly painful walk home. Great. Well tomorrow I'll take a trip to the running store, see if new shoes will help and then give it another shot. Right now this is just very frustrating more than anything. If it was just muscle pain that would be one thing, that's something that I can just run through. But this knee problem makes it difficult to simply bend my knee and the shooting pain is a totally different sensation than plain soreness. Its also worth noting that this isn't exactly a new development; the same thing happened last summer when I tried to running regularly and picking up my mileage.

I'm open to advice from anyone who has experienced similar problems or who has a little more knowledge in this area. Stay tuned, hopefully I can get through a full run this weekend. Time's a wasting!