My favorite kind of doctor

I headed to the doctor today to make sure my cranky ankle isn’t something serious.

I had nothing to worry about, and the whole experience made me glad I sucked it up and put my mind at ease.

I was feeling pretty anxious in the waiting room, surrounded by Good Housekeeping and Golf magazines and older adults with canes and wheelchairs. But when I got into my doctor’s exam room, it was a different world. Running ads, Runner’s World columns he’s quoted in and photos of him finishing triathlons and marathons plastered the walls. A stack of Muscle and Fitness magazines sat beneath the exam table. I felt at home.

Dr. Pereles himself further eased my mind. After a couple quick X-rays, he determined that I definitely don’t have a stress fracture (hint: If you have a stress fracture, you’ll know it. It’s apparently not one of those “maybe I do, maybe I don’t” type things). He put me on a hard-core anti-inflammatory steroid called Medrol that you take for only six days, and said the problem should be gone.

Really? Just like that? I threw in a few other symptoms I hadn’t mentioned, such as the fact that something in my ankle clicks when I roll it.

“Mine does that too,” he said cheerfully. “It always will. But it’s harmless.”

Ditto for the numbness I feel (or, rather, don’t feel) on the side of my foot.

“Yep, that’s the nerve,” he chirped, adding that after a running injury of his own, he’d endured weeks of similar numbness.

Here’s the best part: He asked how much I run currently. I explained my three-day-a-week plan.

“Really?” he said. “For distances like the half-marathon, you really ought to be running four or five days a week.”

I left the office glowing, with marching orders of, “Don’t stop running or anything.”