I've been exercising 6-7 days per week for nearly 2 years now (lost 120lbs in the process!) and in February, I started jogging outdoors for the first time whenever the weather was nice enough, 2-3 times per month. Now that the weather's nice enough all of the time, I'm hitting the pavement 3-4 miles, 6 days a week, and have been doing so for 2-3 weeks since my elliptical developed an extremely annoying squeak.
Yesterday, on my 4 mile run, I started to develop pain in the knee region of my right leg. I say "knee region" because it doesn't hurt around the kneecap or behind my knee, but on the outside of the knee between the calf and thigh. I ran through it, but once I completed my after run stretches, I noticed that it really had started to stiffen up and hurt, causing me to limp a little.
This morning, while the general ache was gone and it no longer hurt to walk, it really hurts to walk DOWN steps! To the point where after 4-5 steps I want to stop and rest. I see no swelling or redness and when I'm just sitting in a chair there's no pain, but extending my leg creates very minor stiffness and the motion of walking down steps is progressively worse, the more stairs/steps I take.
Does this sound "normal" and I just need to give it a few days rest to see how it responds or should I be making a doctor's appointment forthwith to get it checked out? I'm a bit obsessive about cardio exercise, so I can see myself overdoing it and trying to go for a fast walk or slow jog tonight and making it worse...
