Drugs!

Waited about 15 min before they called me. My turn and into exam room #8 I go. The nurse takes jots down a few notes (which I had already filled out on their form). Then hands me some cotton shorts and says, here put these on so we can take some pictures and leaves. Two minutes later a knock on the door and down the hall where they x-ray my knee... front, side and back.
Back in the exam room I go, change back from the shorts... About 5 minutes.... she walks in with my pics, puts them up on the light and says doc will be in to see me in a while.

I must have waited 1/2 hour... thumbing through 3 magazines... So he comes in and again I describe what happened when, blah blah....
Looks at the pics and he says they look good, no calcium deposits etc... So basically its what I had suspected... patellar tendonitis... He says it shouldn't be a problem!! He prescribes two anti-inflammatory meds... strong stuff... Treatment time about 8 weeks. Good news is I can continue to run! Just ice for 10 min within 30 min of finishing my run. Oh and he says skip the brace... that it just adds friction! I had also explained about how 1 hour after icing I seemed to be just fine. He's a runner too, he asked me how old I was... he says yep it happens to him on occassion too. He asked when my next race was. I told him probably not until Jan but that I was thinking of maybe doing one in Nov. He looks at the calendar and says the Nov date should be doable... In fact he says "let's make it a goal"

So bottom line is I can continue to train, ice after runs, take the meds...

However, I know I've lost conditioning due to all the time off... so I'll be base building. Slow easy runs, LHR training!

The avg pace of my last 4 mile runs (before stopping) was 11:14 w/AHR of 137... Saturday's pace for the 4 mile run was 12:04 w/AHR of 156!! I've got some work to do!