My left foot

My ankle

I have stepped up my exercise program in preparation for walking the Nike Women's Half Marathon. I added a mile or so to my usual walk around the Wild Animal Park.  As I did so, an old injury began to assert itself. In 2009 I broke my ankle.  It healed nicely with lots of physical therapy. However I occasionally had some pain in the joint of my big toe and in the ball of my foot. There is no need to go into a long involved discussion of this. But the problem reared it's ugly head when I stepped up my walks.  Two days ago I went to a podiatrist. It was an interesting experience. They have a state of the art X-ray machine. Instead of lying down, you stand on it so that the X-ray shows what your foot looks like when it is bearing weight.

Here I am standing on the X-ray machine and here is how they line my foot up.
It turns out that my foot has compensated for the limited range of motion in my ankle.My  big toe joint has arthritis and a bone spur. The two long bones, called metatarsals that connect to my big toe and the one next to it are elevated. This makes the whole foot cattywumpus.  So. the more I walk, the more I aggravate it.
The doctor told me to go to a certain 'foot' store and buy a certain kind of shoe insert. After 6 weeks we will reevaluate. The sad thing is that I have to drop out of the half marathon.  My foot just can't handle the extra pressure.  I just want to be able to maintain the level of fitness I have now. The doctor said to let my foot tell me how much is too much. If it hurts I have to stop. Fortunately the elliptical machine doesn't bother it. And of course I can keep up my weights.
So I will find other ways to contribute to the Team in Training fund raising. I will speak at events and volunteer at aid stations.
I have learned to roll with the punches, make adjustments and just keep moving forward. It's all good!