When I walk up stairs my ankle clicks. It's a not so subtle snapping sound that my husband teases me about, because you know I'm coming; I could never sneak up on anyone if it involved going up a flight of stairs. It's the result of a sprained ankle I suffered in high school (like every other high school athlete). I stumbled across an interesting article this week about ankles, which basically argued that ankles are themes foundational join in the body and an ankle injury can lead to other more complicated injuries (some of which I have experienced). It was a fascinating read and made me realize maybe my clicking ankle needs more attention than I give it. There are a few other things that have caught my attention this week other than my ankle:

Perceived Pain and Effort: When I coined the mantra "Embrace the Hill" it was a philosophy I had adopted when it came to tackling a difficult aspect of hill running. I thought that maybe if I learned to embrace something challenging, I'd get better at it. Turns out there's some science behind it and this fascinating article delved into the details of how we perceive and push through discomfort when it comes to running.

[Tweet "Midweek musings: ankles, Arizona, pain and training. what's been on my mind lately from @runfargirl"]

Training by Time: Although I don't officially have a coach, I do have the input of the coach of my running club and he suggested taking the next 8 weeks to focus on building a base before the start of indoor track in December. The base building plan involves running by time instead of mileage, which is a slightly different approach than I'm used to. It's very similar to what I'd be doing in terms of weekly mileage, but the different focus is a nice mental break. Each week incorporates some specifically hilly runs and then every other week I'm running a 5K time trial on the track.

Arizona: We spent the long weekend in Arizona visiting my Grandparents. They had a chance to meet Liam for the first time and see first hand our crazy our crew can be. I'm beyond surprised that something didn't break during our visit, considering the fact that my Grandma's house is basically a china shop and Jack is basically a bull. Our visit was jammed packed with visit after visit and now I feel like I need a vacation to recover from our vacation.