knee troubles

This past RAINY Saturday Candace, Sara, and I met for a run.  We met at 6:30 am and had no trouble parking since we were the crazies out running in the rain.  Luckily the temps were in the 60s so we didn't turn into ice sickles. 

 

The run started out great.  I forgot to mention in my last post that my knee trouble hasn't gone away.  It started bothering me during the half marathon at about mile 6.  It hurt for several days afterwards but then subsided.  Saturday was the first run since the race and I was hopeful that the pain wouldn't return.  Sadly, that wasn't the case.  It starts out super dull and then slowly progresses to a intense burning.  It feels better when I stop and stretch for a second.  However, when I begin running again the pain creeps right back. I'm so frustrated with it at this point and the only thing I can think to do is to take some time off.  You all know this is NOT what I want to do, but the last thing I want to do is keep running on it and make it worse.  I'm thinking it's either "runners knee" or "IT band" issues.  If worse comes to worse I'll see a doctor, but I'm hoping a few weeks off will do the trick.  I'm also thinking my shoes may be slightly to blame as well as the higher mileage.  The knee pain started pretty quickly after I got my newest shoes.  When I start back I may run in my older pair and see how it feels.  I never had any pain when I ran in those.  I will still go to the gym and ride the bike and weight train.  I guess this is just a reality of being a runner that I have to face.  Runners get injured.  Because we all know that it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm getting older :) haha