I Hate my Ankles

I really can be a clumsy doofus. This morning I was running up the bike lane on Shoal Creek in the dark and stepped into what must be the only pothole on the entire road. I was doing about a 7:50 pace at the time and all my weight went onto the outside of my left ankle which crumpled, leaving me on the floor feeling ever so slightly embarrassed.

Now I don't mind so much rolling my ankle on the trail (if you're me, that tends to come with the territory), but when I start doing it on the road that sucks (I guess my clumsiness knows no bounds).

The frustrating thing is that I'm 27 miles shy of 200 for the month, 18 short of 1000 for the year, and had a nice 20 miler planned for tomorrow. I didn't have time to ice the ankle this morning and I've been hobbling around a bit this afternoon. I'm going to stick it in a bucket of ice tonight (oh joy) and hope for the best. I may be running much shorter and a lot slower tomorrow.

The bottom line is I hate my ankles. They are my Achilles heal and I need to do something about them. When I'm doing yoga, I'm ok on most of the more advanced poses, but child's pose - one of the "easiest" of all yoga poses? Forget it - my ankles just aren't that flexible.

Can anyone recommend any good ankle strengthening or flexibility exercises?

Oh, and many thanks to David for agreeing to shortcut across White Rock and cut this morning's run down to 7 miles. Also for slowing down to an 8:30-9 minute pace for those last 4 miles.

And no, before you ask it's nothing to do with my 700 mile road shoes!!!