Batman Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Here is "Santa" Gavin opening presents with his reindeer on Christmas morning. My little buddy made it one of the best Christmases ever - we played, we ate, we napped, we cuddled, we wrestled, we went out to see Christmas lights. We had a full day of fun.

One of the songs he's picked up this Christmas is "Grandma got run over by a reindeer". It's been playing all the time on Magic 95.5 (and I mean ALL the time). When he opened up his presents, one of his favorites was a "Batman" action figure, and before I knew it he'd started singing "Batman got run over by a reindeer". He acted it out while singing, and Batman got well and truly squished. We all had a good laugh over that one.

Of course I also spent Christmas Day limping around on my swollen ankle and colorful foot. I do not know how many times I've sprained my ankle this year, but it's been a lot - this has been the year of the ankle. They are without doubt my huge weak point on trail, and I know that if there's anything that will prevent me completing the Trilogy challenge, that is it.

I haven't run a whole lot since Sunmart - first I tweaked a hamstring, then I got sick, then I did the ankle. It's been one thing after another and I sometimes worry that all the groundwork I laid over the last 6 months is being unraveled. So when I got an invitation to run with Clea and Meghan this morning, I knew I had to take a chance on the ankle because I needed the miles.

We met at the stretching stone down at Town Lake for a good hilly run along Stratford Drive and up through Scenic. It's amazing how conversations stop abruptly at the bottom of the hills only to continue again at the top. My Asics did a great job of stabilizing the ankle and it was never a problem. The weather was another matter - I don't know where winter went, but it was horribly humid. I could feel the lack of running in my legs and knew I was a little off-pace, but the good thing about running with friends is that they can pull you through and that's what happened. We got back to the cars at 13 miles and I called it a day. The girls were going back out to get in another 7 and hit 20, but I decided to head off home and ice down the ankle.

Still, maybe taking the break I did is not a bad thing. I'm thinking that if I play it right I can take advantage of it and use the next few weeks (and Thursday's marathon) to run myself back into form for Bandera, then use that as a springboard to peak again for Rocky in February.

So says the eternal optimist.