An Ankle Sprain 14 Days Before My First Marathon?

Are you walking me to the park today?


Yuki sleeping and using my foot as pillow




Yuki, my pet puppy, looking more confident now.

It was 8.70 kilometers into our long Sunday run this morning when it happened so unexpectedly. Nette, Sandra and I were running on a narrow asphalted walkway in a nearby trail when we saw an overweight man walking in our direction. We did a single file, and continued running, and as I was trying to move to my right trying to avoid colliding with a fat guy like myself, half my right foot landed on the edge of the walkway and the other half on grass that was too soft and gave way. Before I knew what happened I was down on the grass, holding on to my right ankle. I was understandably worried and angry at myself at the same time for being so careless so close (14 days to be exact) to my first marathon race.

I stood up, put some weight on my right foot, and thankfully, on a scale of 10 the pain or discomfort was only a one. I told my lady friends I would try running and see how it was, and lo and behold, the pain gradually disappeared as we covered more and more mileage.

Finished 23ks in a slow time of 3:12:17.


Took 2 advils when I got home iced it and took a 3 hour nap.


Woke up around 4pm , took my puppy Yuki to the park , tested my ankle by playing a chase game with her and found out that the supposed injury was nothing but a mild ankle twist and not a sprain as I initially thought.

Thank God, it's still a go in two weeks.

Also, my puppy Yuki (snow in Japanese) is with us for exactly one month now. Yuki is a bichon frise that we got from a dog adoption agency. She was with the breeder for 6 months living in a cage most of the time until a foster home got her to live there with 6 other bigger dogs. My daughter Marie got her from the foster home for a few hundred dollars donation.

Yuki was a pitiful dog at first. She was thin. Scared of people, her tail was always between her legs and her ears were always down. She got startled by any kind of noise, the closing of the door, turning on the computer or the TV. Coming home, I would see her hiding in one corner cowering in fear. My wife, Jojo even suggested for us to take her back to the dog adoption agency. This was Yuki a month ago.

Now, Yuki is a different puppy. She's getting more comfortable with people and she actually greets us cheerfully with her tail wagging. We used the services of a dog trainer who gave us some helpful information on how to potty and crate train her. We enrolled her to obedience school and every now and then take her to a dog care centre. A dog walker comes every now and then on days when all of us are at work. We exposed her to people by taking her to the park whenever we could. I'm reading a book by Cesar Millan titled A Member of the Family, Guide to a Lifetime of Fulfillment with Your Dog which I think could help me be a good dog owner.

I found out one day that Yuki, with her boundless energy was a great runner. I happened to be walking Yuki close to a nearby football field when I met a friendly lady with her pet Maltese. She suggested to me to let Yuki off leash and let her play with her dog. I did, and what a joy to see Yuki running fast chasing after the other dog (who is an adult dog) .

In all the days that I took Yuki to the park since then, we'd run and run in the grass until I could continue no more due to fatigue.

Yuki is my newly discovered running partner, baw waw waw!