Injured...now what?

Last weekend I had my first 20-Mile run. As I mentioned in a previous post, I felt really good until about 15 miles, when the outside of my left knee started to hurt. I kept running. By the end of the run, my knee was pretty sore. Now, I've had this problem before. The pain is usually above my knee and to the outside and occurs after long runs. The first time was on the towpath after a 15-mile run. It happened again on a a 14-mile run near home. Just recently, it happened near the end of the Cloud Half Marathon. In each of these cases, I rested, iced, stretched and continued to run. Of course, I did Internet searches and diagnosed myself with IT band issues. I bought a foam roller, and did the crazy stretches, and it seemed to get better.

After this 20-mile run, I tried to run the day after, and my knee was too sore, but by the second day, I seemed to run 3-miles fine. I then travelled to Albuquerque, and ran 6, 8, 6 mile runs with no apparent problems. On Saturday was a 14-mile run, and about 6-miles in, I felt some pain in my knee. By mile 7 I had to stop. I turned around and walked the 5-miles home. This has never happened before, I never had to stop and walk home.

I iced and rested, and tried to run on Sunday. I felt a twinge at 4-mile and by 5 I again had to stop. This time the pain was a dull ache and was lower on my knee, but still on the outside.

So, I'm bummed. I need to go to the doctor and figure out what this really is. My marathon is only about 8 weeks away.... not sure what will happen, but Thea keeps telling me to not give up.

I'm calling the doctor on Monday to see if he can get me in. I'll post an update soon.