Does Runner's Knee Mean I'm Officially A Runner?

So, it's happened. Two and a half weeks in, and my knees are finally starting to hurt, which was my worst fear going into this as an overweight runner. Right now, it's just a small pinpoint of pain, right below my knee caps and toward the inside of my legs, but it is already affecting my motivation to run.

The pain is far from unbearable, and really more on the uncomfortable side at the moment (so forgive my whiny-ness), but all I can seem to think right now is that if I let this get worse, then it will not only affect my running plans but my daily life as well, both of which are equally as terrifying.

So I'm at a crossroads. Do I just suffer through it and hope it doesn't get worse? Do I stop running and get treatment? I honestly don't like either of those options, so I think for now I'll go with door #3: I'll do some research and figure out a way to make it better, while still moving on with my plans.

So here's what I've learned about Runner's Knee so far...

According to this article from Runner's World, increasing your mileage (or in this case the time spent running) by more than 10% a week puts you in prime territory for knee pain.

Also, you might remember my post about stretching? Well I've updated it. Now that I'm doing more miles, I've come to realize the importance of pre-run stretching as well as stretching after you run

The Runner's world article also suggests that knee pain could be a result of tight calf and hamstring muscles in combination with weak quadriceps. My original school of thought was that carrying around this much extra body weight was enough strength training for my sad little quads, but now it's looking like there are a lot of squats in my future.

Alright enough about that. Here's the plan (from Amanda Runtothefinish on youtube) for fixing this, and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.