Pain underneath toes

I am doing the GNR next week and I've found that I've started to get pain under my toes when I run any more than about 6 miles in training. It's not unbearable but an uncomfortable aching and it gradully gets worse. Once I finish running it disappears after about 30 minutes. Does anyone have any ideas what it could be and how I can avoid it? I got new shoes a few weeks back but it started happening before the change and the shoes are plenty big enough for me. Training is otherwise going well and I don't want this to hold me back! Thanks.

You need to elaborate on this a little, such as the type of pain, ie: intense and deep or stinging for example. Has any one been telling you to change your foot strike? A lot of runners fall for the advice that forefoot strike is more efficient and produces faster times. It also produces plantar fasciitis and numerous other injuries in those that try to deviate from their natural running style. A lot of 'experts' swear by 'Chi' running. Chi running nearly crippled me. On the other hand it may just be that you are increasing and intensifying your training for the big day and your body is telling you to hold back a little. Also, toes are like any other joint in the body, they need stretching. Just a guess now, but It may be from lack of flexibility. Not many runners give any credance to flexing this vital part of the foot anatomy and most never stretch them. There are many ways of the stretching toes. Ask a physio to rule out anything more serious and research toe stretching: I don't want to advise over a forum; you need some pictorial guidance.

when you say under your toes, do you mean in the ball of your foot?

Does it ache a bit when you hold a toe and move it upwards?

If so, that's likely to be metatasalgia.

Doing things like scrunching up towels with your toes is meant to help a bit, as is icing.

If it continues you can get special inserts that take the pressure off the area.

Thanks for the replies. Its not the ball of the foot at all it's the underside of the toes, haven't changed anything about my style but have been running longer than I normally would. Read up on that Metatarsalgia thing and it seems to be the closest fit to my symptoms I've found so far and I've got very high arches which fits.

if it's just the toes when you raise them, and no pain in the ball of the foot, it might instead be extensor tendinitis.

If it is that, twiddling your toes aggressively in a tub of as hot water as you can handle can fix it.

Gentleman Gene wrote (see)

Has any one been telling you to change your foot strike? A lot of runners fall for the advice that forefoot strike is more efficient and produces faster times. It also produces plantar fasciitis and numerous other injuries in those that try to deviate from their natural running style. A lot of 'experts' swear by 'Chi' running. Chi running nearly crippled me. 

It's not right to say that people "fall for" advice about changing running styles. That makes such advice sound like some con trick. It is very sensible to change your running style if you are a heel striker - particularly if you're a heavy runner and suffer from lower leg injuries. The evidence is pretty clear that heel-strike is far from being a natural way for humans to run, and will eventually catch up with you.

It's HOW you go about trying to change that's important. It can be a long process. Just diving into it and trying to run several miles in an unfamiliar way is asking for trouble.

Chi Running doesn't advocate forefoot running. It's an eminently sensible running methodology that has proved beneficial for many thousands of injured runners by reducing stress on the lower leg joints. If you were nearly crippled, you were not Chi running.