Ankle Me This ...

I have been away for a while and unable to find the time to update my running progress most of the month. Well, soon after my last post, I had done some research and found that I needed to up my miles I run in a week to better prepare for the half. So, I decided I'd run 4 times a week. I ran an Monday and Tuesday back-to-back mornings. Then I ran a Thursday and then Saturday for my long distance run. Well, that was the plan. Tuesday morning the run went fine, but for the next few days I was plagued with an ankle problem. Maybe it was lack of stretching the ankle, but it hurt. It hurt to walk, go up and down stairs and especially to run. Thursday I tried to run with it and I ended up only able to complete 3 miles before it got really bad. I iced it and tried to keep off of it for the next few days. By Saturday it was feeling well enough to do the long run of 10 miles. However, now it has become a constant worry for me. Having never had ankle issues, I wonder why something like this is starting to be painful. Maybe its my age (almost 31) or the fact that I've been running on it now consistantly for 5 (now 6) straight months. Both are probably true. I just hope moving forward this doesn't keep me from accomplishing my overall goal. Gotta run.