I tried my first HIIT yesterday.

Its really remarkable, I was extremely tired at the end, but the recovery took much less than the recovery from the steady jogging soreness.

However I feel a slight pain on my knee joints at the end, probably from sprinting like a madman.

How can I avoid this pain and protect my knee joints?

Thanks

did you stretch/warm up before your session?

Yes, I am very careful about pre-workout streching/warmup.

doing it on asphalt? rubber track? grass?

move to a rubber track or grass if you can, that could help

Quickly recovered how so compared with steady state cardio?

For me, its not really pain, but its just the knees feeling weird. Probably the knees are not used to that many sprints all in one session.