Karen and I went to Xanadu at the Hale Center Theater last night with my running friends Larry & Jolene Marshall. As we were dropping them off Jolene said I should at least get some x-rays and have a doctor take a look at it. So this morning I tried to get into my doctor. He was not in the office and his next open appointment wasn't until April 6, so I went to the urgent care in the same building instead. The x-rays didn't show anything serious. The doctor, also an athlete prone to ankle sprains, gave me some good information. One thing I learned is that medial (inside of the ankle) sprains are rarely mild. The inside of the ankle is stronger, so when it does get injured it is usually medium to severe and typically takes 4-8 weeks to heal, with some pain potentially lingering for a while beyond that. He said as long as it doesn't hurt worse, I could probably run on it with little risk of causing damage. As is usually true in most cases, I should let pain be my guide. I left with renewed hope. This is good, because as I mentioned previously, from October until now this has been the winter of my discontent. As I mentioned to Karen, not running pulls me down physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. I think Karen is as anxious for me to get back to running as I am. I think she's tired of me doing my impersonation of Grumpy the Dwarf. | 