Wow, sorry to hear about your misfortune. You should be a little sore, but since the tissue being removed is already dead, the recovery should be speedy.

Next season. consider getting larger-sized shoes. Fortunately, we don't see posts like yours on ST that often any more. The simple truth is that a 5K running shoe is too small for a marathon, but I guess you know that now ;-)

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DFL > DNF > DNS

I've had four removed, and for me the toe next to the big toe took the longest to recover, since its the longest and tends to rub/bump into thing way too often. In all my removals, I walked out of the doc, and went to work. I was able to bike train the next day, and running in about 5 days, but I would try to keep it minimal for a few weeks. If you just finished up a big race, I'd say now is the time. Its not really terribly bad. I'm sure if you've done IMAZ, you can endure some pain. The shot to numb it is the worse, and there are a few days afterwards where its pretty sensitive due to the chemical burn of the nail bed to kill the root. Overall, the benefit was worth the hassle and pain for a few weeks. I'd just not recommend doing it 6 weeks out from an Ironman, as my dumb ass did. Two removals in one session, and a 15 mile run 6 days later was not the smartest thing to do. Delayed the healing, but no major set backs. Keep it clean and follow your docs post procedure cleaning routine, and you'll be fine. I purposefully sought out a sports oriented foot doc though, so she knew what I was going to be up to. Most will tell you to just lay around for a few days.

I'm too much of a coward for the procedure, but read Pam Smith's report on permanent toenail removal (not a matrixectomy though)

http://www.irunfar.com/...st-foot-forward.html

basically no restriction on restarting running or biking, just pain tolerance. For swimming you'd want the skin healed over, so that might take longer.