Been about a month so I'm due for another update...
My knees are generally doing quite well, considering where I was a few short months ago. The best news is that I've been back on the bike for a month or so with no real setbacks. I'm back up to 40+ mile rides with a few thousand ft. climbing, so I'm pretty stoked on that. I'll sometimes deal with some soreness, but nothing severe, persistent, or sharp like I had before. I also have my winter sports back, with a couple days skiing, a day snowboarding and a couple days nordic. Yeah, late start and pretty sucky winter but I'm just glad to have some of my life back. Still no running or jumping (or skiing the way I'm used to). Sure I still have a certain "background pain" most of the time, which is pretty dull and something I can deal with.
Saw a sports med doctor a couple weeks ago for an exam and review of my MRI, which she agrees looks generally good. No signs of tendon damage so it appears that my tendinopathy has been correctly addessed through strength training and stretching, and it may never have been severe enough to show up in the first place. Rediagnosis is.....of course, runner's knee.
A series of strength tests reveal that my large muscle groups are strong as ever, but my hip abductors and external rotators are still VERY weak and underutilized. I'll be back to the PT soon, but until then I've added the first half of
this workout to my routine, and have backed off the frequency and intensity of my quad work.
After all of this, I realize that it would be misleading to consider this an "overuse" injury, while it was not the level of activity that was necessarily the problem, but rather the lack of attention to whole-body fitness, core strength, and flexibility required to sustain my activity. Where my workout was previously over when I got off the bike or home from a run, I now understand that this can no longer be the case. I feel like I'm finally doing well, making real progress and am very close to being able to run again. Not long ago, I thought this may never be the case.
I used to be among the crowd that believed that the only relevant training for running is to run and the only relevant training for cycling is to ride. This is not true. If there's still anyone out there that doesn't subscribe to flexibility, core strength, and total fitness: Get off your "I'm too strong for that" high-horse, and pull your head out of your a$$ before you put yourself in this same position!