Shaking Things Up to Keep Moving

What I had secretly hoped was a bit of overdoing-it-related pain has made itself known its an issue and I'd better deal with it. That stabbing pain hasn't gone away, and in fact its crept into general walking as well. Something is wrong with the medial side of my knee. I don't know if its just the OA or if something has worn down or if the meniscus is more damaged than it was when I got the MRI in February. I just don't know. What I do know is that this hurts damn it. So, taking the bull by the horns so to speak I decided to postpone my long run this weekend and do some cross training instead. I can certainly say my arms and butt needed it! Oww! I did a great chest, shoulders and arms workout Saturday and followed it up with an hour of legs and back on Sunday. Since both workouts required minimal knee involvement I felt great. I think this might be the magic pill for me; if I can get in one of those workouts each day (or most days) then I won't feel as horrible if I have to do more walking than running when I'm hitting the streets and trails AND I'll be following my surgeon's advice by continuing to work out. Now, big ideas aside, I really do need to do something about this silly pain. I know if I want to keep building my mileage (and heck-finish that half marathon in September!) I will need to find a way to run without feeling like I've got a gremlin stabbing at my knee with each step. I looked at unloader braces, but they seems pretty extreme. Do I really need something like that? Tightening and adjusting the hinges in my short runner brace isn't helping much anymore. If I was talking with someone else about this I would tell them to see their physiotherapist, but my surgeon didn't think I needed to see one. Ugh. A wee bit frustrating but then again none of this issue has been really easy (aside from the MRI appointment - Love you Mom!). Okay, so I've got 8 weeks to get trained for a half marathon and find a way to cope with this new pain. Sometimes when I'm running I wonder if one day my knee will just decide its had enough and totally give out on me and that will be it for running, but then there are other days when I hear from people who've overcome injures similar in severity to mine saying "Find a way around the injury, don't let it be a crutch!" And my perseverance side kicks in and I know I will continue to push on any way I can.