Let’s take a minute and talk about something that you might not ever read in traditional running magazines…  

If you are going to train and run a marathon, you need to pay attention to your toenails.  Keep them trimmed as short as you can.  If they grow too long, they will bang against the end of your shoe until the toenail becomes black and blue.

If you have a black toenail, there is a 95% chance that the nail will die and fall off.  So, the part that you won’t read in magazines is this -you do not want the nail to fall off too early.  If it does fall off before the new nail under it forms, you will have exposed “soft-nail” that is subject to growing back irregularly and painfully until it is hard enough, or at least close to your old nail.

So what do you do?  Keep the old, loose nail taped in position as long as possible.  You can use a Band-Aid at first, and may end up needing to use a more heavy tape such as electrical tape, etc. 

Just a quick warning to the black toe public…do not dive into a pool with loose toenails!  It can be kind of embarrassing “diving for toenails”…and I only know all of this from experience.

Now go trim your toenails, and get out there and run……………………….

PS – if you have any questions please feel free to ask.   I am not a doctor but have had just about everything you can get running.