no more running?

So, I intended to do a 5K last night. As the day progressed, it became less and less likely that I'd do so and then it just didn't happen.

I woke up with burning calves. I could only hobble around the house, but I thought it was hilarious. I'd run a course with some hills the day before and this was expected. Burning calves are a sign that unused muscles are waking up.

When we got ready to leave the house, I got to the five steps from our porch to the ground and discovered a far bigger problem. In the past, I've experienced varying degrees of knee pain from different activities. In general, when my knees take a repeated beating over time, they let me know about it. Near the end of a 40 mile hike a few years ago, I found myself only able to step up and down with one leg because the other knee was so upset with me. Well, yesterday, my left knee felt like someone had stabbed it.

The pain has mostly gone now (more than 24 hours after my last run), but it was intense, right between the patella and the femur. It's on the inside of my knee, and feels like it's in the cartilage (I could be wrong about that, but it's definitely not bone and I'm pretty sure it isn't tendon pain). With a large family history of bad joints (both parents and a grandparent have had at least one joint replacement, two of them have had more than two replacements, and my sister is a matter of time) my next step is to get a full physical and then a reference to someone in the physical therapy field who can help me move ahead from here. I'm happy to use a knee brace for support and protection, but I refuse to use painkillers. Joint pain is not something that I want to cover up or ignore - it's there to warn me about something serious and important and I need to know.

My days of running on hard surfaces are probably over, which is unfortunate because though there are plenty of trails around here, they aren't as well-lit as the streets, have far more large omnivores with which to contend, and aren't located close enough to the house for me to access them without a bit of effort.

I just hope I can run again.