Ankle? What ankle? I don't see an ankle here.

My ankle was finally starting to feel better yesterday. I had full natural motion and no stiffness... and then the swelling started.

I think I re-tweaked it playing with my boss's puppy, Belle. She's about nine weeks old and VERY energetic, so when he brings her to work we take turns walking her and trying to tire her out a bit.

Can you blame me? This picture is pretty much to scale by the way. She's a peanut.

Apparently I romped around in the fall leaves one too many times and I must have twisted something the wrong way. I looked down at my ankle at some point in the afternoon and realized that all signs of my Achilles tendon had disappeared without so much as an abracadabra.

Swollen AND ashy! Clearly the embodiment of sexiness. You have to admit though that I do ROCK an aqua nail polish.

This sounds like a job for R.I.C.E. right?

Great idea, but hard to implement when your boyfriend is going to be a groomsman at his sister's 5:30 wedding and you have so little time after work to get ready that you have had to borrow a friend's spare key to avoid putting on makeup in a restaurant bathroom. My wardrobe (and more importantly, shoes) had been packed the night before and going home (twenty minutes each way in the very best of traffic) for footwear substitutions was not an option.

On the bright side I no longer had to worry about whether there was going to be any good dancing music!

So after locking my keys in my car (I got them back in less then five minutes but it involved running up and down a set of steps about three times and a lot of adrenaline), and a lightning fast wardrobe change and makeup job... I still missed the ceremony by about ten minutes due to a combination of holiday weekend traffic and GPS fail. *sigh*

I danced the requisite "join the couple for their first dance" swaying in place, and then sat as much as possible after that... but still ended up looking like someone had sculpted my calf out of dough by the end of the night.

I hate hounds-tooth and pointy toes, and yet I LOVE these shoes! Go figure.

The bright side is that my ankle never did hurt, though just below the back of my knee was a bit tender and also a touch swollen. I got some ice on my ankle the minute I got home and after a long night of sleep with it elevated it is mostly back to normal.

I am going to continue with R.I.C.E. protocol along with anti-inflammatories for a couple of days as I really need to be back on my feet in full fighting form ASAP.

Click image for more of Ray Villafane's pumpkin sculpting awesomeness

I am tentatively hoping to be back to running Monday as I have TWO virtual 5ks next week (The Cupcake Classic and The Great Pumpkin Race) and my first for-real 5K on the 28th (John Theissen Children's Foundation Freaky 5K).

That's not even taking into account the requisite pumpkin picking, haunted houses, and general pre-Halloween awesomeness of the season.Limited mobility is not an option.