C25K/Knees

[muppetdave]

I'm on week 3 of the NHS's Couch to 5K. I'm enjoying it, and been doing fine, until last week. When I kicked off, I had all the achy muscles etc that you'd expect of someone out of shape and not really having done any major activity for a good few years. That was all fine, following the rest day and another run it's shaken off. But for last week both knees have been agony. I'm not being a drama queen, I played more than enough rugby to know a knock from an injury and this is fairly painful - and not lifting. To describe it, it feels like bruising, but as I say it's constantly there. Two days ago I stepped on a balled up t-shirt when coming down the stairs and the jarring caused was excruciating!

The last two runs, despite the pain I've continued with, albeit going a touch slower. I missed my run yesterday to give an extra day's recovery to see if it'd help, but it's as bad today, and thus I said I'd wait until tomorrow. I am keen to keep going and not let up and don't want to be a wuss, but this is genuinely painful. Logic tells me it's just the pressure my knees are under being overweight and now having to work a bit harder (particularly logical as it's both), I'm certain I'm not doing any long-term harm or anything, but do I keep pressing them or just ease up a bit?