My Journey With Health And Fitness – Runner’s Toe

Today was my first day running after taking a few weeks off to do my crazy walking. I figured when you are walking up to 30 km a day adding a run into the mix is not the best idea. So off I went this morning down to the beach where I planned a 6 km run. The only thing I hadn’t considered was that it would be raining an windy. You know the kind of conditions that make you feel like your face is being stabbed by tiny little needles. I had to give up after about 4 km and get my husband to come pick me up. Not to worry, I’ll try again on Thursday.

I was looking at me feet the other day and realized that I need a pedicure because there is a big gap between the bottom of my toenails and where the nail polish starts. With tha large gap now showing I noticed one of my big toenails looks black. This is a sure sign of runner’s toe which is common amongst runners and people who participate in other sports such as tennis, squash and soccer. It is caused when your toe repeatedly rubs or slams into your shoe which causes stress to the nail. Now I haven’t been running a lot lately but I sure as hell did a lot of walking which I am confident has caused this (I had it once before when I was training for a 1/2 marathon).

Here are some of the symptoms of runner’s toe, dark red toe nail, black toenail, loose toenail, pain, blood blisters, pressure beneath the nail, loss of nail, trouble walking and trouble wearing shoes. Ok, that sounds like a lot but if you are like me it is just a black toenail.

In my case, there is no pain in my toenail so I really don’t need to do anything about it except to wait and see if it falls off. In some cases where there is pain and/or you have trouble walking you need to see a doctor who might do a nail trephination. This is when they drill a hole in the nail to allow for the blood under the nail to drain (apparently you are given a local anesthetic so it won’t hurt but I for one am hoping I never have to go through that). Now admittedly there can be other causes of runner’s toe but I’m fairly confident that mine is caused by walking 305 km in just 11 days.

They say you can prevent runner’s toe by having properly fitting shoes. The shoes should allow you to wiggle your toes easily and provide 1/2 an inch between your big toe and the end of your shoes. I, however, know this is not necessarily a completely preventative measure. My shoes were fit by a professional, are rated for both walking and running and are really comfy. I think the reality is I just abuse them when I decided I really need to push myself.

And so I carry my runner’s toe with pride because I worked hard to get that black toenail. I think I will carry it as a badge of honour.