Runners

To be clear: you went from not running at all to running 5k every day? That's going way too fast, and you'll definitely be risking injuring yourself. You need to build up gradually. I would recommend doing a structured programme. The C25k is a popular one, for example. 3 days a week is probably better to start with, and you could do some other form of exercise in between (cross training). Do some resistance training would help a lot too, to prevent injury and preserve your muscle mass. You won't be "gaining lots of muscle" from running, especially if you're not strength training, and not eating a surplus of calories. You'll have gained weight because your muscles retain water as they repair themselves. Seriously, slow down. Running is very hard on the body and you need to build up slowly.

I also think you're doing too much, too fast, but will also trot out the age-old line, "Have you been fitted properly for running shoes?"...

I learned the hard way that your body needs rest!! I'm not a new runner, but I'd had some time out from it, then started this silly challenge to do 5km every day for 50 days. In the challenge, you don't *have* to run every day, you're just supposed to do 5km or an equivalent amount of exercise every day, but silly me got it into my head that I could run every day. After 5km is nothing, right?

I did great for 4 weeks and was really enjoying the improvement in my fitness, my pace etc. Around Day 30 of the challenge I started getting really tired legs...I even posted a topic on MFP asking for advice thinking maybe I just needed to drink a protein shake or something to help recover. I was pretty annoyed when all the responses I got were basically telling me to quit the challenge and rest!!

But stubborn ol' me kept going...Anyway to cut a long story short I am now in sports therapy. Fortunately I don't have a stress fracture as I'd feared, but I do have some pretty messed up muscles, andthis was probably aggravated by an old knee injury from like 8 years ago which i hadn't evn thought about. My leg was strapped up in K-tape for a week, and I've been ordered not to run or do any activity that aggravtes the pain until it's completely healed (no no netball training or me eithe :-( ) I'm now having regular friction massages to help my inflamed muscles and eliminate the lactate build up in legs - let me tell you not all massages are relaxing - these flippin hurt!!

I'm almost back to fitness again and have been cross training rather than running but the experience has definitely been an eye opener! I thought I could handle it, but actually I was pretty naive about how your body handles physical stress and workout recovery.

My advice is, if you get any kind of pain while working out, stop and rest (or at the very least do a different form of exercise that doesn't put stress on the hurty bits). Also, as someone said, make sure you get fitted for the right shoes if you haven't already done so.

They might be "nice" shoes and they may be Brooks running shoes, and your FEET may not hurt, but if they are not right for you then they may still be contributing to your knee pain.

Just beat me to it there :-)

My feet have never hurt in any shoes, but my left knee and hip flexors certainly have...

Forgetting the other advice on here, which is probably spot on, you should be icing your knees and legs for about 10-15 minutes after your runs. You may be doing that already, but if not it is worth mentioning.

Before your runs, do some straight leg lifts working up to 1-2 minutes on each leg. Those really have worked for me over the years whenever I get knee stiffness.