Hello, this is Coach Claire Bartholick with today's episode of the Runners Connect audio blog.

The article I am reading today is written by coach Jeff

Gaudette, and it's called Black Toenails, Cramps,

and Pain on the Top of your foot. Three common running pains and how to treat and prevent them.

Running is difficult enough when you consider the very real threat of prolonged injuries that keep you off the road for weeks or months at a time.

But what do you do about those more frequent yet extremely painful annoyances like black tonials and cramps that

while not classified as injuries can be very difficult to run through. In addition to treatment and prevention how do you decide

whether you can or should run with one of these very painful annoyances? To make

the decision more confusing is that more serious injuries like

Achilles tendonitis and plantar fascitis often begin with pain that is very

slight and easy to run through while these smaller annoyances are often extremely painful from the start, yet typically aren't long lasting.

You certainly don't want to take unnecessary days off, especially if complete rest won't speed up the healing process.

To help you make sense of these smaller yet very painful injuries,

I'm going to outline the three most common injuries that aren't really injuries.

More importantly, I'm going to detail treatment and prevention methods and help you decide

when it's safe to train through and when it's not.

Black and dead toenails. Black toenails are the bane of sandal loving runners everywhere.

However, in addition to looking hideous,

they can also be very painful,

especially in the first few days

after the blood blister is formed. Generally, black toenails are caused when your toe rubs up against the front of your shoe or

sock. This is usually caused by either ill-fitting shoes or shoes that are laced too tight.

...