I'm not a big fan of running, but I do love to power walk and challenge myself with hills and intervals on a good 'ole treadmill from time to time. I've not had any knee problems but people voice their concerns over running and knee injury with me. So, here is a bit of confidence for your stride.

Convincing evidence from Stanford shows how running actually strengthens the knees, rather than wearing them down as some would believe. Also check out Times on line where the study appeared and view the video on strengthening your knees, too.

"recent evidence suggests that running may actually shield somewhat against arthritis, in part because the knee develops a kind of motion groove. A group of engineers and doctors at Stanford published a study in the February issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it. But if this exquisite balance is disturbed, usually by an injury, the loading mechanisms shift, the moving parts of the knee are no longer in their accustomed alignment and a “degenerative pathway” seems to open. The cartilage, like an unbalanced tire, wears away. Pain, tissue disintegration and, eventually, arthritis can follow...

But, always think safety first.

...If you’ve injured your knee in the past, particularly if you’ve ever torn an A.C.L. (an injury that, in the Stanford gait study, was closely associated with misalignment and cartilage degeneration), talk to your physician before running. But for most runners, the scientific observations of Chakravarty will ring true. “What struck me,” she says, “is that the runners we studied were still running, well into their 70s and 80s.” They weren’t running far, she says. They weren’t running frequently. They averaged perhaps 90 minutes a week. “But they were still running.”

Stay strong. Call me asap so we can train your body, build your muscles, and leave body fat in the dust!