The foot had been allowed to run at 60 percent of me.
Now it had all of Brooklyn.
Less than six weeks earlier, my first proper run after the New York City Half lasted 30 minutes on an Alter-G treadmill. A normal outdoor test had hurt after 2.5 miles. The machine let me add running back in percentages while I did most of the real work on a bike.
The Popular Brooklyn Half was a less controlled test. It started in Prospect Park and finished at Coney Island. New York Road Runners later counted nearly 27,000 finishers. I was one of them.
My race-day screenshot recorded 13.3 GPS miles. The first two were 6:54 and 6:43. Mile three dropped to 6:04. After that, the full-mile splits stayed between 6:00 and 6:34.
The back half was steady. Mile seven was 6:00. Mile nine was 6:08. Mile eleven was 6:02. Mile thirteen was 6:04. The final 0.3 showed 5:56 pace.
My heart rate sat mostly in the high 150s after the opening miles. The foot is not listed in the screenshot. That was the useful part.
Three days later, the official race email arrived with congratulations and my stats. I had made it from the park to the boardwalk without another 60-percent setting.
That did not make the whole recovery finished. Five days after the race, I emailed my physical therapist that the lower left leg could still use some help. I canceled that appointment because I had a sinus infection and did not want to spread it.
The leg still needed work. The next appointment would happen later.
The foot had done thirteen.