Disclaimer, I am not a doctor. I am not a nurse. My Mom is a nurse which is just a cool fun fact but I went into the teaching side for my career. My medical speciality includes my ability to apply a good bandaid and offer someone ibuprofen. The other disclaimer is that the last photo in the blog post will not be looking pretty. If you get queasy with injuries, I’d skip this post…

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s read on!

What do the experts say?

Not many Podiatrists were willing to state flat out if you could or could not run on a broken toe. They were probably worried about lawsuits which makes sense. All the information I could find from Podiatrists were to get an x-ray done and listen to actual medical advice. That made since but let’s dig deeper.

What does the common blogger say?

One blog post, written by the running apparel brand Rockay, reports that you may be able to give a go if the following is true for you. The pain is mild, you can put on a shoe, and the toe doesn’t worsen with walking or running. They also recommend against going for a run if you have a lot of pain or are unable to put on a shoe. Lastly, they also err on the side of caution when making the decision.

Another blogger, named Amber Sayer, interviewed a Physical Therapist to get in a stronger opinion. According to Giancarlo Sossi, a Physical Therapist and Co-Director of Thrive Physio Plus in Australia, it is possible. Dr. Sossi says it is a possibility that one can run on a broken toe. He says that there are a few factors that come to play when determining the risk and safety for running on a broken toe. The first factor that plays a roles is which specific toe is broken.

The Pinky, The Middles, and The Big Toe

Your most important toe for running is the big toe. According to science (woohoo science!) and other experts, it handles more weight on a run than the other four toes combined. I’d say that is a good fact to file away for your future trivia knowledge. It also is the primary toe needed to push off for your power and a big part of your stability when running. If that toe is broken, chances are you are not running.

The pinky toe is the second most important toe. Podiatrist Dr. Bruce Pinker, who couldn’t have a greater last name for this statement, says that the pinky toe’s primary role is to provide balance. If that one is wrecked, looks like running may need to be put on hold.

Lastly, you have your middle toes filling out the rest of your foot. Turns out if you want a toe to break, these are your best ones to go. Well, I wouldn’t remove them completely but the choice is yours. When a middle toe breaks, you can buddy tape it next to a different toe and give running a go. That statement was dedicated to Dr. Suess. Now if the bone is out of the toe, you hopefully didn’t think about running and went straight to the hospital.

So, why is all this brought up?

Welp, your averagerunnerpaul was working this week and slammed his foot into a couch. Luckily the kiddo I was working with didn’t notice my yelp of pain and I managed to finish the rest of my day with only a wee wobble. That may have been the shock taken over.

When I got home, the toe pain continued and I decided to see what had happened. Hoping for a sprain, I took off my sock and this is what I saw below. Also, don’t judge my small feet, my parents decided to give those genes to me and I had no say in the matter.

My first thought was that it wasn’t as bad as expected. No bone was sticking out so that was good! My second thought was that it may be the end of the run streak. I hadn’t had a toe go purplish-black before though so my thoughts were that it was worse than a jam. I decided that I wanted to continue my run streak and may as well give it a go. With the lack of ability to bend my toe, I got ready to rumble. I threw on a sock, used the power of ignorance of the diagnosis, and went out the door.

The broken toe run!

Pretty quickly I realized that pushing off my broken was not an enjoyable experience. I pridefully should have given up my run streak but I was at 30 days and wanted to hit 31 days of running so I could say I ran a mile a day for a month. Note to self, use wisdom over pride in future decision making.

As I got down the driveway, I felt mild pain as long as I landed on the pad of my foot and didn’t go fast. The first minute led to an awkward running gait and I fell into a groove that would work for at least a mile. Or so I hoped. I approached the first intersection in our neighborhood and went to take a left towards our local park. Turning on the toe did not feel good. I would need to stop before turns to not make it any worse.

I decided at that point to stick to running straight and reduce my number of turns. The only other turn would be coming back to that intersection before getting home. I didn’t track my pace and once I hit a half mile, I stopped and did a 180 back to home.

The rest of the way wasn’t too bad. I’m not the toughest individual but I assumed it would be a lot worse with the pain level. I would put it doable, maybe a 3.5 out of 10. An uncomfortable run but I could run in case of emergency.

Once I got home, I took off my sock and the bruising and swelling had increased. The top of my foot at the base of the toe looked bluish-purple. Hurray to new colors! I decided not to share that image because one picture of the toe is enough for anyone. The toe now was completely purplish-red, not just where I suspected the break was. Oof-da.

What’s next?

Time to say goodbye to my run streak. Ironically, I have never broken a toe before and I have never set a goal for a specific running streak either. Thus, the streak ends at 31 days and I can say I went out with a bang. A month of running and I really enjoyed it! Highlights of that experience to come. For now, it will be on to bike training for me before reevaluating how the toe does with more movement. Janel and I have a vacation booked to Ireland soon to visit our old stomping grounds (where we met as roommates, fun fact!) so hopefully I can run on some old running routes. Or at least maybe I can survive the cobblestones.

Hope you all have a fun rest of the week and watch out for furniture! Question for the day, was there any running injury you were able to power through and it got better over time? Alternatively, any injury that you thought you could power through and it ended up being a bad idea? I’d love to hear about it!