After the Warrior Dash, I took an entire week to rest my gimpy ankle. And by rest, I mean I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary except not run. I didn’t ice it. I didn’t elevate it. I didn’t wear compression gear. I walked a lot.

It still felt about the same a week later. I still took it for a run on Sunday.

The 6.2 miles I ran weren’t bad (especially considered the gluttony I had exhibited earlier in the day on some Domino’s stuffed cheese bread and pizza). I did 3:1 intervals, hoping to keep it easy and not put any undue stress on the ankle. Except you know I’m not good at keeping things easy. I managed to negative split every mile: 12:33, 12:05, 11:38, 11:37, 10:46, 10:37, and 10:23 pace for the last 0.25. It’s pretty safe to say that, while I could definitely feel my ankle every time I landed on my right foot, it wasn’t bothering me too much to run on it.

I practiced some bad running form and stared at my feet a lot on the run to make sure I wasn’t landing weird or doing something else to compensate for the ankle. My feet seemed to land just fine.

It definitely felt worse the next morning though. I remember with my last ankle injury, it was always more sore in the mornings, and this one was no exception. It gradually improved as the day went on, so by the end of the day, it was no worse and no better than it had been the previous week. Therefore, I still have no clue if it’s a good idea to run on it.

I decided that I’d start my running streak as planned, but any indication that my ankle was getting worse, and I would immediately pull the plug on it. Starting half marathon training injury-free is more important than a silly running streak!

I’m so tired of being injured. You’re getting a Runkeeper view of the last 30 days because (a) I only ran once this week (well, I only count one as a run), so the Nike+ graph is pretty boring, (b) I keep track off all my cross-training on Runkeeper, and (c) I can’t make Runkeeper only show me the past week. The green signifies running; orange is walking; pink is cycling (stationary bike); and blue is the elliptical.

On Tuesday, I went to the gym to crosstrain. I did 10 minutes on the elliptical, 10 minutes on the stationary bike, and 20 minutes doing a very slow walk on the treadmill (I didn’t even go a mile…I mean, very slow). My ankle didn’t bother me at all on the elliptical or bike, but I could sure feel it when walking. Sigh!

I went back for more crosstraining on Thursday. This time I just stuck to the bike. I had lost the earpieces to my earbuds, so I went in thinking this was going to be a sucky workout with no music or TV to listen to. I chose one of the bikes with the virtual scenery. This was nice, but as I soon found out, these bikes (at least that I could tell) don’t tell you how far you go. So I did 25 minutes on a virtual scenery bike, which I can only guess was about 4.5 miles based on the fact that Tuesday I did 2 miles in 10 minutes. Also, I hate the stationary bike. I’m sure I have the seat adjusted improperly or something, but it is torture for my quads.

Saturday morning I got up and decided to test out my ankle very gently. I did a mile of intervals: 30 seconds jogging, 1 minute walking. I could still feel my ankle, but it wasn’t death. After that, I headed out to the grand opening of Fleet Feet’s new store in Green Hills. The first 100 people in line got a free gift card worth a random amount from $10-$200. I got one, but it was only worth $10. (Still, a free $10 is better than nothing! Thanks, Fleet Feet!) Some people in front of me had brought their whole family, including several children under age 5, all of which got a gift card. Another reason to have kids, I guess. I wonder how much they totaled in free gift cards. Anyway, I thought about getting some new socks, but they didn’t have any Injinji’s, so I opted for some Yurbuds instead, since, as I mentioned, my other workout earbuds are broken.

Then Sunday, I got to start day one of my new modified half training plan. I did two miles of intervals; this time I did 1 minute running, 1 minute walking. I didn’t do too bad! Check out some of those run times near the end; not bad for someone with a gimpy ankle!

Anyway, my plan is basically to slowly build my running intervals, increasing maybe 30 seconds each week. That would be put me around intervals of 4.5 minutes running, 1 minute walking by the half. I probably won’t run it with defined intervals, but I like having the option. I suspect my intervals will be something like: run until I see Mickey…take a photo and walk a bit…now run through Cinderella’s Castle!

It was 30 degrees with a wind chill of 23, and this was the first time I had ever run in below freezing temperatures. As I layered on all my running clothes, I giggled to myself about how non-brand loyal I am when it comes to running.

Does anyone have any tips on keeping my nose warm though? I mean, short of running around in a balaclava.