You had those in your knees, right? Did they help at all--I can't recall. Though your knee problems turned out to be something more serious than runner's knee. I think I am going to call my PCP tomorrow to get a referral for a sports med. doc. I really can't deal with pain on every long run anymore. As it is I have tossed my original marathon training plan (which would have been perfectly doable on good knees) and scaling back...and I'm not sure my knees can handle that, as I took 5 days completely off from running (only did consistent quad-strengthening stuff) and as soon as I did a long run--BAM, that shit was back by mile 6.