Broken toe and marathon training (with picture)

The Coffee Shop
1

Over the weekend, I cracked my toe walking into a disassembled metal bed frame part that was sticking out from under a bed. Was the toe next to the small toe. Hurt like hell, thought it was broken bc it felt just like when I broke a finger a couple of years ago. A little bit sore to move, immediately, but limited mobility, and hurt to the lightest touch, even more than moving it hurt. Hurt to walk barefoot on hard floor but threw on a running shoe (they’re new, so still nicely cushioned) to test it out bc I had a supersprint the next day (0.25S, 6B, 2R) which I was doing just for fun. Felt ok in the shoe, did the race. Only hurt running from the swim to T1.

btw, it was put on by a park district and the first 200 yds of the swim was in the waterpark’s lazy river (the jets were off) and the next 200 yds was a 100 yd run away in the lap pool. Pretty weird but really fun. The lazy river was only 3 feet deep (yes, some people ran it), 10 feet wide and snaked the whole way. time trial start, one person every 15 seconds for an hour, so the river was wide open and crystal clear.

So the race went fine. Afterward, we stayed at the waterpark with the kids for a couple of hours and it started to hurt a little more climbing the hills to the tops of the slides. Looked down for the first time since before the race and the toe was a cute shade of purple (alas, it did not match my swim trunks).

http://lh3.google.com/chuckbaum1/RrY6MJ_EPXI/AAAAAAAABtw/o2FmN5o8PMU/DSC_0005.JPG?imgmax=576

So, I am in the middle of training for the Chicago Marathon. It doesn’t seem to hurt much when in the running shoe or when I push off of it on flat ground, but it does a little more when ascending. The Chicago race is very very flat, as are my training runs. I know it will be ok by the Oct race, but I am concerned about missing long runs from my schedule (17 and 18 next 2 weekends).

I am thinking that if it is tolerable, I should just go for it. Checking whether there are any dissenters, or other thoughts.

Thanks.

2

I broke my second toe in two places a couple of months ago. Dr said to tape it to the next toe and do what ever as long as it doesn’t hurt. W/in 3 days I was running etc… I did a triathlon 6 days later and it didn’t hurt.

After about 4 weeks I quit taping it all the time (still do from time to time if I notice it’s swollen).

Not much else you can do really.

3

You have very clean looking feet. Did you trim your toenails for this picture? They look freshly cut.

4

That’s so sweet of you to notice
.

5

Gee Whiz! Don’t you know that you are supposed to write “OT” when you post something like this in the LR?!? ;^)

I think if it is tolerable you should go for it. The pain will dull considerably after the first mile or so. I don’t think you will have any long term issues because of it. Just make sure you don’t run awkwardly because that would cause issues from favoring one side or the other.

Bernie

6

Agree with the taping comment…use the buddy system, tape it to the bigger toe next to it, and keep on training. There’s really nothing else you can do for it.