black toe nails

It's fun and games this running malarky! I think running should be reclassified as a dangerous sport! Thanks wayne for your comments - guess I just have to get used to the black toes. Glad mine aren't a snooker set...green  toes..humm!!

This is an old thread! I have been running for about  twenty years and because I am a runner I'm stupid.

I cured the problema couple of years ago. What happens is your foot moves in your shoes if you have not laced them right up to the butterfly holes,As you do the good bit (running downhill) the foot slides forward and the toesnails go all black as they hit the front of the shoe. Little toes get squashed if the box part is not wide enough.

These things happen even if the downhill does not really show up as a hill.

I work in a running shop in Central London so i hear this every weekend-

...go one size bigger or half a thumb width/full thumb width...You may have a great shoe (Kayano) but is it right for you gait...It is not just the swelling that increases the foot size - it is also the individual foot strike and foot shape...you may need a squarer shoe or toe box (Mizuno or NB for eg) - when the foot strikes it acts like a spring and stretches outward/forward and sideways - the shoe may not be high enough also...try some other brands at a running shop...they may be able to help...You need space at the side slightly aswell as the front...experiment...I go 1 full size up and run 30/50 miles per week and have never had a black toe nail plus i wear twin skins and vasaline...GOOD LUCK

I've tried larger shoes, shorter nails, orthotics, uphill, downhill, slow, fast... I lose at least 5 nails every year, for the last 5 years of marathon running. I lose the nice new ones just as they have settled. 

Having assisted, yesterday, with the removal of nails from a young lass with ingrowing toenails, I'll happily lose mine to running.  I could be very graphic about how it was done but I kept my eyes well averted.  What I saw made running and black toenails far more prefarable, and yes they grow back, pretty normally.  Sometimes wish they wouldn't - then I'd have nothing to bruise!

I used to have this problem with my Kayanos too and have never really gotten rid of it but it did get a lot better after I started wearing twin skin socks.

And yes, they grow back just fine.

i've gone to the podologist 5 times. first it was a small shoe. then i went up a whole size bigger. cut my toe nails regularly. got rid of the bad toenails (my second and third toes and longer) and still got a black nail and had to get rid of another one. changed the podologist. told that i have a runner, ballet dancer or footballers feet. it happens. friction against the toes. we use our feet. can't prevent some kind of movement in the shoe. some people more prone to others because of how our feet are shaped. she showed me how to wrap them up before i run with gauze or else just stick a silicone cap on them. also wear 100% cotton socks either inside out or seamless, to help with the friction. the only thing which bothers me really is not being able to paint them all nice in the summer )

despite keeping toe nails short, buying 2E wide fit and a size bigger than normal trainers, I still get black toenails, in fact both big toe nails have split exactly the same, but opposing arcs, and the 2nd toenail on right foot is totally black, it can shirley just be the strike and rub or the shoe ... i would go buying double size because you may get too much movement and rubbing and pronation due to poor support, my advice is to simply make sure you put the lost nails in the recycle bin not the ground fill so everybody benefits ..