Brew City Milwaukee

Milwaukee’s rainy weather forecast had us a bit worried for our full marathon, but we got lucky and had wonderful weather without a drop in sight. (No running in a garage for us this time!) There were nearly 3,000 runners attending the Brew City Marathon, Half Marathon, 10K and 5K, with us and 234 others running the full marathon.

The full marathon was a double loop where we ran the whole route, and then repeated the course again. We’re normally not the biggest fans of double loops, but this course was lovely and flat the entire way making the morning run quite enjoyable. We ran by the Milwaukee River and the course was a paved trail. We also utilized Jeff Galloway’s “run walk run” method, stopping at every mile marker and walking for 30 seconds. We also walked for a few seconds at every water station. This ended up being a great strategy for us. The first half of the marathon was our fastest in the last couple years, and our overall time was under five hours which is our fastest non-downhill marathon since 2022! If you haven’t tried the Galloway method, it might be good to experiment with.

After the marathon, we had dinner at a lovely place called Cavas – a small restaurant, run by a sweet married couple. He handles the customers as she makes the delicious food. The ambience is intimate and charming, and the dishes were fantastic with flavorful sauces. We also grabbed some ice cream at Purple Door Ice Cream where the waffle cones were made fresh and warm to touch. We tried a variety of flavors and they were all delicious, from chocolate to mango, and a flavor called road gravel which was like a mix of rocky road and maple pecan. 

Overall, our Milwaukee weekend was a great experience, giving us one of the best times we have ever run, and reminding us of why Wisconsin is called America’s Dairyland.