I have a painful ankle injury at the moment, and wonder if the symptoms sound familiar to anyone.

I injured the ligaments on the outside of my left foot at the beginning of August, which resulted in me being non weight bearing for 3 weeks, followed by a month of physio. After a couple of short runs (1-2 miles) I decided to return to playing football, and after one match I noticed a lot of pain on the inside of my ankle, and all around the front of the joint between my leg and my foot. I wasn't kicked during the game, and have no bruising, although it is swollen.

I have had an x-ray, and have a follow-up appointment at the doctors tomorrow, but assume that if it was broken/fractured/chipped I would have had a phone call. Obviously I don't expect a diagnosis via a forum site.... I am hoping that I will get that from the doctor.... but I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar sounding injury, and if so what it was and more importantly how long did you have to rest it before getting back into training.....

Any advice would be gratefully received.

I tore my ligaments earlier this year in what sounds like the exact same place as yours. - I was on crutches for 2 weeks and then told not to exercise for the following 8 weeks. It sounds like you really have gone back into action too soon. I resumed training (very light) by the end of week 6 as I was getting bored by then.

Rest, rest and more rest !

Thanks for that Granty, It does sound like a similar injury, I was also on crutches for a few weeks, did you go over on your ankle? that is what happened originally with me.

I didn't think I had gone back too quickly, and was given the go ahead by the physio, but it is looking as though I did....

What would you consider very light training?

Yep, I was playing football as well, foot got caught in a small hole and the ankle carried onwards and outwards with the foot not moving, never felt pain like it !!

Thinking about it now, after about 4 weeks I went swimming quite a lot and my ankle felt really weird in the water at first and also some cycling. at 6 weeks I decided to start running (I am a newbie to running) and I could only mange about 1 mile at that time (in about 20 mins as well !! (so there was no danger of over doing it there)

After that I just built up slowly, got into running and now only play Pro 5.

Sounds the same to me, that is exactly how I injured it, and I definitely understand what you ar saying about the pain.....

I also felt weird in the water, and did a little bit of cycling before starting to run again, and did around a mile at first....

Just out of interest, when you say earlier in the year, when was it? I am supposed to be doing the marathon in April, having already deferred this year (due to another injury) so need to be thinking about starting training by the end of December at the latest .....

I did my ankle near the end of Feb / early March, I also entered a half marathon in September so really had 5 months to prepare for it.

Is it your 1st Marathon ?, how far do you currently run ? - I would stand no change of preparing now for a Marathon in April, (a Half maybe).

It is my first marathon, and currently I am not running at all. I am doing some non-impact training on cross trainers at the gym, since this latest injury, to avoid doing any more damaged, at least until I know what it is.

I was well into my training schedule in March, when I had to defer my place in the marathon due to a knee injury, but at that time I was doing around 30 - 40 miles per week, with long runs between 13 - 20 miles. The furthest I have run recently is 3 miles, just before this latest problem with my ankle....

Ideally I would like to be able to do 10k fairly comfortably by the end of December, and then I will follow a 14 week, 'get you round' training schedule from the beginning of January, but obviously if I find that this injury needs 6-8 weeks rest, then I will have to think again.... so I am hoping for some good news from the doctor tomorrow.....

It is frustrating, as I have never had any injuies until this year, but I seem to be getting them all one after the other now....