Reunion weekend with some of my closest college friends, from Virginia, North Carolina, Texas and Chicago.  Met in Milwaukee, where one just moved.  Ate brats (of course), drank beer (ditto), went to a Brewers game, etc.  Saturday morning I met up with a Milwaukee runner’s club (spouse of a classmate belonged), which was fun.  Running is a community, and they welcomed me in.   There is always room for another runner!  Got a nice shout out on their Facebook page, and a picture with the group as we started out at 8am.  

Yes, Milwaukee is flat as a pancake, but it was 85 oxygen-sucking, hot, humid, head-in the-oven degrees at 8am as a heatwave blasted the Midwest.  I ran 8 miles with them, and that was plenty.  We may run hills in the west, but what they do is a different kind of hard.   Some of the runners were training for this fall’s Chicago Marathon, another for an upcoming 50k, and a third guy (about my age) has done a couple of half iron man triathalons.  Goes to show that if you have running shoes, good lungs and legs, you have a starter group of friends wherever you go.