I guess we'll all have to post nude photos. I'll go first.

OK, all beutiful women we must cheer Marcus up.

Had my appointment with an orthopedic surgeon this morning. Nice guy, athlete (runner & cyclist), and works on a ton of collegiate athletes in the area and some professional type folks too. He took a number of x-rays and reviewed my MRI films. Diagnoses: 1. Patello femoral pain syndrome (runner's knee) 2. Bone marrow edema of the proximal tibia (lower knee) per MRI. The bone marrow edema is a precursor to a stress fracture as I thought. He gave me some Celebrex and Ultracet (tramadol) for pain. Since this is starting my 4th week of little to no running, he said I should be able to run again gradually in 1-2 more weeks, so that's cool. The bone marrow edema, like a stress fracture, will resolve itself. Now the bad news: the runner's knee is never going to completely go away. As long as I run, it's going to be there to some extent. My doctor trained under one of the high gurus of runner's knee so I trust he knows what he's talking about. He said I will learn how to manage it and adjust volume and intensity as appropriate. In other words, very soon I will learn what I can handle and what I cannot. He said it may get to a point where it's too much of a hassle and I will just stop running and start seriously cycling again. Maybe. I really love cycling almost as much as running, but don't live in an area where I can ride like I used to down in Austin. He said athletes like myself are the worst patients to get this crap because we don't like to take it easy and usually just make it worse and then wonder why all of a sudden we cannot run. But there is no definitive answer to how much volume or intensity I will be able to handle. It's basically how much pain do I want to put up with, or at what point do I do more harm than good. But, this runner's knee will not cause arthritis nor will it require surgery. I am just going to have it forever. So it's another week or so of cross-training only and then hopefully a very gradual return. Objectively it is feeling better and yesterday it almost felt good enough to run a little bit but I didn't. This sucks.

Thanks for posting that, Amy. A hard diagnosis to get.