It was around October 2025 — about eighteen months into all of this — when it happened.
By that point, my running had come a long way from that first 8-month mark, where I’d finally managed the full 5km without walking, at a pace somewhere in the low 32-minute range. Since then, I’d kept chipping away at it, and in June 2025 I hit a personal best: 27:40. I was genuinely proud of that number.
But by October, something had shifted. My times had crept back up into the mid 29-minute range, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t seem to break back into the 28minutes, let alone get near that PB again. Looking back, I think that plateau is probably exactly why I started looking for something — anything — that might help me improve.
That’s when my wife and I went out for our usual morning run, and I decided to try hill intervals — something I’d heard could help improve overall running performance. I sprinted up a hill for about 20 seconds at a time, five times in a row. Nothing felt wrong that day. I finished the run, went about my day, and thought nothing more of it.
The next morning, I woke up and felt it immediately — something was off in my foot. A sharp, unfamiliar pain right in the sole.
I did what most of us probably do: told myself it would settle down with a few days off. It didn’t. The pain hung around, and after about two weeks of it not improving, I finally went to see a doctor.
Since this was the first time I’d had this particular symptom, my doctor referred me to a physiotherapist. At physio, alongside some exercises, I was given shockwave therapy — a treatment where the shockwaves specifically hurt at the site of inflammation, which is apparently how they confirm they’re targeting the right spot. It also came with a kind of electrical stimulation sensation during treatment. I went through six sessions of this over two to three months.
It didn’t get better.
Around that time, a friend mentioned something that stuck with me: plantar fasciitis, he said, can be a bit like frozen shoulder — sometimes it’s less about finding the perfect treatment and more about time simply needing to do its work.
In the meantime, I’ve made a few practical changes. I switched to softer, more cushioned running shoes, and I’ve started wearing soft slippers around the house instead of going barefoot or wearing anything firm. Small adjustments, but ones I’m sticking with while everything else takes its course.
I don’t have a neat resolution to offer here yet — this is very much still in progress. But if you’re in the same spot, feeling like you’ve done “one wrong hill session” and now you’re paying for it weeks later, I wanted to write this down so at least you know you’re not the only one.