Ten miles this morning with FootWorks 4/1 “Best Group.”

At this point in the relaunch, I don’t know what kind of runner I am anymore. I’ve spent months deeply detrained and feeling perpetually injured, and a few better runs aren’t enough to tell me whether fitness is really coming back or whether I’m simply having a good day.

So the advice has been restraint. From my virtual trainer from the Parkinson’s Foundation. From the GPT analysis program I have set up. From the niggling doubt in my lizard brain.

Stay with the group. Keep it measured. Don’t turn a long run into a fitness test just because I feel better in the moment. I did that.

For most of the run, I was a good boy. I kept the effort under control and resisted the temptation to make the watch—or the people around me—prove something I’m not yet sure is true. Partway through, we reached the Towel Angels truck, where Ms. Laurie and her helpers were waiting with iced towels and electrolytes. In a Miami August long run, they are in fact angels to us.

Then we reached that last long city block. And from back behind the lizard brain, something familiar surged.

Earlier this year, when I was running with Fabian’s nine-minute FootWorks group (the fastest one), he used to remind us to save something so we could finish strong. Fabian is an experienced marathoner, and that idea stuck with me.

This morning, when I hit that final stretch, I remembered those runs. I had done what I was supposed to do. I had stayed with the group. I had been measured. I had not tried to prove that I was farther along than I actually am.

So I set myself free. For the last mile, I stopped managing the run and just ran. I felt like a little kid, running naturally, arms out like an airplane, face to the sun. Garmin named it in the form of a number: 9:44.

The number surprised me, but what mattered more was where it came from. After roughly two hours on my feet, I still had something left. And for one mile, I stopped wondering what pace I was supposed to run, what shape I was in, or whether this relaunch was working.

My body remembered something before my confidence did. It’s still in there, ready to “release the beast,” just like it says on the back of one of my favorite running shirts.

Support the run for Parkinson’s: I’m running the 2026 Philadelphia Marathon as a Parkinson’s Champion. If you’d like to support the journey, you can donate through my Parkinson’s Foundation fundraising page.