Jon’s Success Story: Four Years of Plantar Fasciitis

·46 min·3 clips

After years of plantar fasciitis, John ran a self-supported 26.2-mile trail marathon with 4,000 feet of climbing.

The episode opens with Brodie revisiting John's plantar fasciitis success story after an injury chat from about a year and a half earlier. John had been dealing with stubborn plantar fasciitis and the physical and emotional grind that came with it. He later emailed Brodie to say the content, the book, and their injury chat had been a big part of his success. In the conversation, John walks through the things that helped along the way. He started paying attention to warm-up habits. He bought new shoes. He also bought slippers so he would not walk barefoot on hardwood floors. That small change mattered to him. Shockwave therapy may have helped, though he is careful not to separate that too cleanly from the strength work happening at the same time. The slow, progressive strength training seems like the clearest thread. During the worst periods, he still tried to do something. If running was impossible, he biked, rowed, or lifted upper-body weights. He had stretches where he stopped running for about a month, but that did not produce the dramatic reset he expected. In some cases, a run hurt at the start and then settled down. The next day was not necessarily worse. He also did not notice a strong link between symptoms and time on his feet doing chores or standing around. What stood out more was the transition from rest to standing; once he was up and warmed up, things often improved. Brodie uses that pattern to talk through the limits of rest and the value of steady loading. By the end, the episode lands on a practical idea: progress can be slow, but runners can keep training in some form while they work toward better tolerance.

As heard by us

A grounded account of one runner working through plantar fasciitis with small, practical changes.

John's plantar fasciitis story reads as a practical, grounded account of moving past a stubborn injury. It points to slow progressive strength training, new shoes, slippers for hard floors, and a better warm-up, while also admitting it is hard to know which change carried the…

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Why you'd press play

If your heel complains most when you rise after rest and settles once you are warmed up, this one will speak directly to you.

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