All summer long I struggled with jogging -- my stamina had plummeted because a short distance in my right ankle would tighten up like it was threatening to kill me while on my off days plantar fasciitis plagued my left foot. My times dropped, my ability to run 1/4 of what I used to completely vanished, and I felt awful. All the recommended stretching and strength exercises in the world over three months weren't helping, so it was obvious I had simply reached an age where my body just no longer wanted to do this kind of exercise any longer no matter how much I worked at it.

"Did you try different shoes?"

What?

"Your shoes. You got new shoes at the start of the year. They probably don't fit."

That-- ...huh.

And so after a trip to a proper store where someone could analyze my gait and...god damn, I had no idea. New shoes obtained! The shoes changed how I landed my foot -- no longer "flat", which took tension off my ankles. That, in turn changed my stride and allowed it to be longer. My stride changing gave me back my endurance and on my second run I found myself back at my distance and times from last summer.

It's so damn weird because there aren't a lot of visible differences between the shoes but holy heck I can feel it.