What's up, Doc?

I don't even know how to get injured correctly: I have Runner's Knee. From biking.

I went to the doctor today. Nice enough guy, he should be of legal drinking age soon. (I want my doctors to be bald old men, preferably smoking cigarettes in the examination room, not some punk kid.) I told him that my knee has been feeling a little bit better every day, and that if I didn't have a race next week I probably would have cancelled the appointment. Better to be safe than sorry. He took a look at my knee, moved it into different positions, and asked "how does this feel? and this? and this?"

"Fine. Fine. Fine. YEOW!"
"You have some inflammation there."

Gee, ya think?

Basically my quad (if it's only one leg, is it still "quads?) is staying tight from all of the extra biking I've been doing lately, and that's causing the knee to pull to one side and cause pain. I need to do lots of stretching to relax the muscles so they're not always putting tension on the knee.

Three other people on my Tri Team have been to this doctor, who is a triathlete himself so he understands what the races and training is like. I told him that in the past 3 weeks, I've run about 10 miles TOTAL and have biked maybe 20 miles. The California Half-Ironman is in 10 days, and I asked if I should skip it.

"No, I think you'll be OK."
"Are you SURE? Because I'm focusing on Ironman in June."
"Just pace yourself, you shouldn't have a problem."
"Seriously, I don't mind skipping the race. It's not a big deal to me."
"Don't forget to stretch out a lot."

I was half-hoping for a medical excuse to get out of doing the race, but he wasn't taking the bait. He DID however get me signed up for 3 sessions of Physical Therapy, and that has me stressed out. For starters, I think PT is a scam industry. Don't get me wrong, I understand that plenty of people really do need it and it works wonders. But I think the insurance industry is a little lenient on who needs PT and the doctors milk it for all it's worth. However, I have to do a half-ironman in 10 days and I've done very little training over the past 3 weeks. I need all the help I can get to ramp up very quickly. You may ask "well if your insurance will cover it anyway, what's the big deal?" The big deal is my deductible, All of this will be coming out of my pocket. Now I'll have to hope for some serious ailment to take advantage of the free medical coverage.

Another issue is the timing. I am stressed out enough trying to schedule my days. Now I have to add in an extra 4 hours of activity next week. And what am I supposed to do about my Lego Log? Can Physical Therapy count towards my total weekly hours? And if so, what color bricks am I supposed to use?! This is just way too complicated.