How I am recovering from IT band syndrome

First, let me preface this post by saying I am not an expert, not a doctor, not a physical therapist, but a runner who's been injured and is now making her way back to hitting the pavement.
This all started about six years ago when myself, my daughter and some friends began training for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run. For any of you who know the course we were going to be running as a team, it's a 10k with obstacles in between, but lots of inclines and declines along the way. I was really busy with work and school but we were trying to make what little training time we had count, so we increased our mileage from 3-4 miles, and 4-5, respectively within a couple weeks time. The anterior of my left knee started to hurt as if tendon was rubbing bone, eventually it would stop me in my tracks and I would have to walk. Now this is pretty humbling for someone who had been running on and off for the best part of 15 years with no real injuries. I googled it and my first thought was we increased our mileage too quickly and we were doing too much downhill.
I did finish the race; however, I had to keep stopping. I of course did lots of googling, but what I got was well, it could be this or it could be that, but nothing I could nail down. Ultimately, I decided to go seek physical therapy. I have Kaiser, so I was referred and approved for six weeks of sessions. To make a loooong story short, the PT thought, yes I had IT band syndrome( the IT band is a thick band of fascia that runs along the anterior from the glutes to just below the knee), but that was a condition caused by my weak glute muscles and my other muscles were over-compensating, not sure I agreed at the time, but I attended the sessions twice a week and did the exercises at home. I tried slowly easing back into running, and no dice, I still had pain, maybe even worse than before.
I kind of gave up on running and figured there were lots of other cardio activities I could do. I did a lot of elliptical and stair master for a couple years. It was okay, boring, but allowed me to maintain my weight as running had done, but running kept me leaner, I think.
Within this time I purchased a book called chi-running and it addressed bad form in running. I tried what it prescribed to lean forward and pump my arms in front and not behind, but it just felt awkward and my knee still hurt.
Flash forward a year or two later and I got a flier from Kaiser stating we have access to chiropractic and sports massage, so I tried six sessions of that. The massages were amazing and sometimes painful and the chiro upon inspection said I had weak calf muscles---what? And they were overcompensating for the other muscles. I did the calf exercises, and of course my stubborn self tried to run again and it wasn't happening. I stopped going and gave up again.
In just the last couple years I discovered that I've kind of been at a plateau in my fitness and I needed to do something to challenge myself and change my body composition and of course, there's been lots of great info out there for women and weight lifting, so this is where my journey both begins and ends. As a runner, I never did any weight lifting-sure I worked arms sometimes but was always falsely told that because I ran I did not need to work my legs because they got a workout already. That misinformation is still out there.
I have been lifting just in the last few months increasingly heavier- for me heavy right now is 48 lb on squats, dead lifts, and bridges; I have been working legs- namely glutes a couple times a week. I didn't make the correlation until a couple weeks ago that the PT was right all along until I participated in a couple runs with my daughter that I was starting to feel like the old me, like I hit a rhythm and I could just keep going, no pain--just study leg movement. I was suffering from a muscle imbalance and running for as long as I had with no strength training created that. I'm only at about two miles right now, but I take my dog out in the a.m. and run with him on and off for a few miles also.
I'm sorry about the long winded narrative, but wanted to emphasize that it took me a long time to get here, and to share with you that even if you think you can't do something anymore, the end is never the end unless God deems it so.