many moons ago cross country taught me to watch foot placement and if I ever did roll my ankle badly -- like the one time my spikes the outside of a large hole and my ankle rolled into it -- I simply rolled with the momentum rather than fighting it, thus mitigating damage. Basically, every tree root looks like a snake, and our cadence and stride is different than road runners. To further help this, I have road running shoes, trail running shoes, shoes that work for both, and will change up my stride as needed. It's just something you get used to. You're more "bouncy" on the trails and much lighter on your feet -- stepping on a loose rock or tripping over something is less likely to throw off your momentum because of it.
For a good read on this, check out the book "Natural Born Heroes."
If you want something different from all the "it gets worse" comments in this thread, check out Chris McDougall's (same dude who wrote Born to Run) Natural Born Heroes. Long story short: genetics ain't got nothing to do with what you can do, merely with being the best at something. It's training and lifestyle. You can run marathons and climb mountains and ski down slopes like a boss at 80. People used to do that all the time, we just stopped doing what they did every day. Now, it's fine not to wanna train constantly and live that lifestyle now, but let's not kid ourselves: it's not tendons and ligaments that stand in our way. It's us.
I love Louis CK, but you don't start dying at 40.
Read ‘Natural Born Heroes’ by Christopher McDougall (of the Born to Run fame). He explains how in Crete, Greece a motley band of World War II Resistance fighters—an artist, a shepherd, and a poet—abducted a German general from a place swarming with Germans. But something similar like 6 Albanians could never ever kill 40 Germans because you’re a self hating Albanian ballist
https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Born-Heroes-Mastering-Endurance/dp/0307742229