12K and a Rolled Ankle

I was stoked for a fantastic run today. I laced up the new Karhus to give them their first outside test.  They felt so great. Then I even added my Bondi Band princess crown for the occasion:

I was to meet JS at Eau Claire for the last 12K of her 22K run.   I was only supposed to be doing 10, but I felt bad about cutting it short last week so my intention was to make up a couple of K this time.   
While I was waiting for her to arrive, I chatted with my TNT team mates.   I had a gift I had been carrying around for Coach Sheena and this was my chance to give it to her.  It was good to get emotional with old friends.

So off we headed - to the west this week.  On the fly, we decided that we would go out on the south side of the river and return on the north.  The route looked like this.

We turned around at 6K and kept noting how congested the paths were.  It seems like every runner in Calgary was out to enjoy the gorgeous day.  It was certainly perfect running weather!   Not long after the turn-around point, we moved aside to let some faster runners pass and I stumbled.  My foot had hit the edge of the pavement and my ankle rolled.

I was able to shake it off but it felt tender.   I was pretty sure I hadn't sprained it but I didn't want to take any chances that I would aggravate it.  Luckily JS was great and allowed me a few thousand walk breaks on the way back.   In the end, we probably ended up walking about 3km of the total 12.   The biggest problem didn't actually turn out to be my tender ankle.  It was my other leg muscles compensating to take it easy.  Right behind my knee was tense as tense could be and it kept pulling me up short.  

For most of the run, we were running at around a 6:35/km pace.  My running room schedule tells me I should be running my long runs at between 7:19 - 8:12 so finishing up with an average of 8:17/Km actually worked out okay.

Tonight my ankle feels fine, but my legs are exhausted.  It makes me wonder about the Karhus now.   They felt so great to run in...No foot pain at all and my shoes didn't need to be laced to the point of cutting off my circulation (like with my Asics).  These are closer to a minimalist shoe and I think my legs are telling me to take shorter runs in them.   But I loved them.  So comfortable.  So easy to run in.  I think I am a Karhu convert (though I am still planning to experiment with several pairs over the next little bit).   I am actually excited to log more miles in them.