workout plan - Changing direction

There is no substitute for hard work.
Training is principally an act of faith, The athlete must believe in
its effectiveness; he must believe that through training he will become
fitter and stronger; that by constant repetition of the same movements
he will become more skillful.

The above quote was sent to me from my trainer, I am always rambling quotes as I am doing my workouts so he sent this to me on facebook because he thought I might like it. The other day I was doing a time trial on the stationary bike and my quads were burning like crazy, the sweat was running in my eyes and I blurted out part of a quote from Lance Armstrong "Pain is temporary"..... and my trainer finished with the rest of the quote "quitting is forever".... for the record I didn't quit :P

So I have been thinking about my injured knee today. I have been in pain for a while now (like 3 mos on and off). I do realize that my knees are taking a pounding carrying around this weight, especially when I run, it takes me a few days until it starts to feel a bit better. What I think that I need to do is rest it for a week to let it fully heal. I bought something called a kneed-it, which keeps your kneecap in place and stops this pain from occurring, the problem is that I need the knee to fully heal first before I can use a device to prevent the injury from happening (if that makes sense)

Tomorrow my workout is in the pool, as I haven't swam in some time and I am just starting to get the feel of the proper freestyle stroke. I think I am going to talk to my trainer and see if we can refrain from any weight bearing exercises for this week to see if I can get my knee back into good form. Perhaps do shoulder and back weights, and even cycling or rowing I think, just no lunges, squats or running as those three seem to give me the most diffculty.

In light of the change, my goal is to offset these changes with being super careful what I eat this week and then next week kicking it back into high gear. We shall see.