A Tale of Two Knees

I hear of many people having problems with their knees and asking for advice.  I have mentioned it in my blog but  decided to recap the journey.  Here is my story...

I first experienced pain in my knees in February 2013 when I was running 10-15 minutes at a time.  It was minor pain and I used plain white knee braces, something like this:

At the time I mentioned it to Michael and he told me it was often a problem that could be remedied by strengthening quads.  He recommended squats. [As a side note, I was also having some ankle pain which I later realized was from tying my shoes too tight.]

The pain increased in my left knee as my time increased and one night during a 25 minute run, my knee pain became so excruciating I could hardly make it home.  Walking up the step from the garage to the family room was almost impossible and by the end of the night I had to have Matt carry me up to bed.

Eventually using crutches, I nursed it along and cut back on running since my first 5K was in a few weeks.  I took the crutches with us in case I needed them after the race.  I didn't use them but was in horrible pain and thought I was going to collapse at the end of the race when Jody hugged me and spun around.  I tried walking around the rest of the day to work out the pain but it didn't help much.

My biggest fear during all of this was that I had a serious injury that would prevent me from running altogether so the last thing I wanted to do was see a doctor.  I would rather not know if there was a problem.

Later that day I stopped by to see my hairdresser to let her know that I had reached my goal of running in a 5K (March 9, 2013).  I told her of my pain and she recommended I call her husband Mark, who is a physical therapist.  She said he would give me a free consultation.

I called Mark the next week and arranged to go see him.  He mentioned that his suspicion was that I may need to strengthen my hips based on research by Dr. Christopher Powers, an expert in the area.  Apparently it is not uncommon for women to have hips that are too weak for running.

I went to see him and he had me to do several things to check the strength in my hips and stability of my knees.  It turned out that it was a problem and he gave me exercises to do several times a week along with recommending 20 minutes/3x a week on a recumbent bike.  He took pictures of me doing the exercises so I would remember what to do and I wrote down how often to do them.

So my cross training began!  I did these exercises religiously even though they were not fun or easy.  I knew that this was my road to continuing my running success. [I also started adding upper body strength training and yoga since they were available to me and would help my running as well.]

Mark also told me to cut my running back to 2x/week.  This was disappointing but I knew I had to try to follow his recommendations because it was my best bet for future success.


I also purchased one (and then another) knee brace to stabilize my knees.  I wear them every time I run but not when I exercise.  While there a tinges of pain from time to time, these really help.  They are rather big and bulky but they do not slow me down or bother me when I run.

Eventually I would like to try these so that I can wear shorts (and skirts!) to run but for now I'm keeping with what works.