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Let me preface this by assuring you that while working out is a big part of my life, I am no athlete. I’m a regular gym-goer who dabbles in group fitness, Pilates, yoga, and?my favorite?running outside, which I find torches more calories and leaves me more invigorated than anything else. Lately though, even a five-mile run is plagued by shooting pain through my knees, and a dull ache for days after.
Since my early days as an amateur runner, my mom warned me to be careful, not to push it. She worked as an aerobics instructor throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s and has always been an active person, a virtue by which, as a current fiftysomething, she’s paid for with intense knee pain. My grandmother’s also plagued with knee problems, having had later-in-life surgery, so it’s always been a given that mine will eventually cause me some grief (or double knee reconstruction, knock on wood.) I’m now several days shy of 26, and have been told by just about every personal trainer I’ve ever worked with (six and counting), a herbalist, and my mom (again) that I really, really should stop running, and I’ve finally decided to quit. Because aside from my family’s genetic propensity for dodgy knees, the facts are that up to 70 percent of runners sustain an overuse injury each year, 50 percent of which occur in the knee. So statistically speaking, running regularly is probably going to cause you a p...