Best city for endurance athletes to live in post-COVID?

Milwaukee, hear me out:

Cheap to live in

Lakeside running

hundreds of miles of bike paths

Surprisingly decent trail system

Easy to get out of

Clean traffic

Miami comes to mind. Not cold, and plenty of freedom from COVID rules thanks to the governor.

Back when everyone had a "Keep Austin Weird" t-shirt or bumper sticker, there were some funny spinoff versions. Someone made a "Keep Houston Ugly" bumper sticker with a Homer pink donut in the background. But the best one was "Keep San Antonio Lame". The funny thing is that since then San Antonio has been very quietly un-laming itself.

Austin has been ruined by Silicon Valley drop outs and East Coast hedge fund a-holes. But San Antonio has retained what used to make Austin the place to be. Downtown and the Riverwalk are tourist traps, but go a bit north or south of downtown and you will find cool neighborhoods that are relatively affordable and full of cool restaurants, bars and clubs. South of downtown is the unfortunately nicknamed SoFlo neighborhood (named for South Flores street). It has a mix of cool new restaurants like Il Forno, a great Neapolitan pizza place and old school local Tex Mex joints like Eddie's Taco House. To the North is the Tobin Hill neighborhood filled with lots of funky bars and anchored by the Pearl Brewery development. These neighborhoods are connect by the riverwalk hike and bike trail that goes all the way up to Brackenridge Park. San Antonio is much more of a come as you are place than Austin, Seattle, NYC, etc. No one is in San Antonio to become a billionaire app developer. Running scene is ok, but you have really great road races in Austin and Houston that are worth an overnight trip. Summers are hot as hell, but you can spend your weekends tubing the Guadalupe, Comal or Frio rivers. Tubing in Texas is basically a floating bar. If you can't hook up after a few hours of tubing, you are not going to hook up anywhere.

C'mon. I'm not agains Texas by any means but those summers are scorching hot -- and also long. Moving there if dedicated running training is one of your top priorities is just insane.

Up until a couple of years ago, San Diego would have stood out. There is a cloud of homelessness overall big California cities, as everyone knows. Public transportation is not great in San Diego, which wouldn't matter so much, but driving isn't optimal (crowds everywhere, and parking is a drag too. Don't move to San Diego unless you want to live in and mostly stay around a nicer suburb, which I doubt a young single person wants to do.

Lots of people are going to Idaho from here now.

It is a trade off. It does take some time to acclimate to the summer heat. But mornings in the summer in SA are manageable as it is usually pretty dry and humidity is not that bad. Then, in winter, the weather is great and you do not have to spend weeks on the treadmill because everything is covered in snow and ice.

I don't know if Seattle was ever the best city for endurance athletes, but it certainly wasn't last winter.

* Lots of snow and very limited plowing or salting of trails and sidewalks

* Gyms by state mandate required masks inside through the end of March even while exercising

Since I didn't want to wear a mask for a 10 mile treadmill run (and actually had dropped by gym membership because of the mask mandates and canceled drop-in childcare, also due to Covid), I ended up injuring my hip running on the snow. Also, if you are a parent of young children, know that most gyms around here have not resumed drop-in childcare since Covid.

Even before Covid, you need to be into downhill and/or cross country skiing or snowshoeing to thrive here. Unlike the East coast, it rains here in the winter when it's cold, and is dry when it's sunny. So the winter is very rough unless you head to the mountains. I mean, it's not as bad as Alaska and probably better than say northern Michigan, but it's not great. In Virginia where I used to live, it's sunny in the winter when it's cold, and the rain cools things down in the summer. (Yes, the summer humidity IS rough, but only for about three months; the rain here in Seattle lasts about 8 months.)

Personally, I think the Bay Area or one of the western states, maybe Colorado, would be best.

I'm a woman. Dating in the Bay Area was great. Lots of motivated, well-off, intelligent, outdoorsy men. As a man, you have a ratio problem. There are simply more men than women.

I moved to Southern Portugal a year ago and it has easily the best running weather I’ve ever experienced. Food is also good and zero guns. Also US culture wars aren’t being fought here so that’s a plus

Depends on the type of running/biking/endurance you are into.

If you like trails, mountain biking, and can ski I would say Park City is the place to be if you can afford it. Lots of attractive 20 somethings sending on mtb's and skis.

If you are more a road runner/cyclist Flagstaff is probably a good place for you.

Denver.

Great trainable weather year round (roads and trails get plowed)

Cheaper than Boulder, less weird than CO springs

Quality training groups (Boulder pros are too stuck up to let non pros train with them or train during normal work hours)

You can meet real enjoyable people rather than rich mommy and daddy adults and college kids

Lots of soft surface options at your doorstep or a short 5-10 min drive

Public tracks

I'm interested in this too, but can we get some non-US cities please for the EU folks?

How's the winter running in Flagstaff? With the quantity of pro teams in the city and the obvious elevation advantages it seems like it must be pretty decent year round, no?

Snows a ton in Flagstaff.

Southern California. I live in an area called the Inland Empire, and will get ripped for it, but it's far more affordable than where you can see the ocean, and I run on dirt and fire roads every time out. Hot as balls today, but when the sun goes down it's still better than the Gulf Coast. No snow, either.

far more men than women, peoples' lives revolve around work, most of the city is dead after 6 PM, everyone is a nerd/engineer, women are generally not as pretty, commuting into and out of the city are terrible compared to real cities with subway systems like NYC, parking in the city sucks, people generally are not as easy to meet up with

Boulder bro 😎

Coach Prime bro 😎

Coach Wetmore bro 😎

40min to Denver Intl Airport

Don't believe this guy. Portugal sucks. Don't go there. Thank you.

Da fck? Portugal is the man, bro.

But Boulder be better.

You will be a renter in CA if you come. Hahahahhaha! 🖕