2012 Deadwood Marathon

21. Deadwood Mickelson Trail – Deadwood, South Dakota – June 3, 2012

Me with Tony, Nason and Dean right before the race.

When I started this journey toward 50 states, there were a few that I dreaded for some reason. Among them, right near the top, was South Dakota. The only marathon I knew about in the state was in Brookings, the home of the South Dakota State Jackrabbits and a place I had been sentenced to, er, sent to twice with the DU basketball team. It’s one of those places where I went out to run 10 miles but had to stop at 5 because I ran out of streets and didn’t care to retrace any of them.

Then I discovered this beauty, covering almost all 26.2 miles on a wonderfully maintained trail. Even better, the timing seemed to be perfect, and it’s in the western part of the state, so it was only a 6.5-hour drive. I prefer to travel to races with other people, but obviously some places make for a tougher sell. I was a little concerned about this one, but as it turned out it lined up perfectly for the Leadville Silver Rush 50 Miler in July. Tony Day and Dean Pelligrino saw it as an ideal training race, so neither hesitated long. Nason Newberg, who I’d traveled to both Vermont and Omaha with, agreed to go, too, although he waited until 11:55 p.m. on the final day of registration. Fortunately, he’s fast. Dean rounded up a couple more guys, Brian Mazeski and Ryan Carey, giving us six people that represented a fairly good portion of the 347 finishers.

Tony, Nason and I left from my house on Friday morning, driving north on I-25 into Wyoming, where we turned off onto Highway 85, one of the most godforsaken stretches of highway in the world. Now, I’m from Kansas, and I’ve made the drive across the state dozens of times. It’s certainly not the greatest, but it’s a wonderland compared to Eastern Wyoming. It’s like a dirt cesspool out there. We had lunch at a Subway in Torrington, where I got through a few inches of my footlong shoe leather and cheese. None of us felt great after the “food,” but we pushed onward. After passing through Lusk, the scenery improved slightly, and once we turned east from Newcastle, we discovered that South Dakota is an absolutely beautiful place. This route was a slight detour that added about an hour to the drive but allowed us to visit Mount Rushmore. I’d been there before, but it’s still worth stopping if it’s not too far out of the way. Tony and Nason had never seen it.

An hour north of Rushmore, we pulled into Deadwood and checked into the Comfort Inn, one of just a handful of hotel options in the town. Deadwood is a strange place. It seemed that everyone we met there had a chip on their shoulder, starting with the receptionist at the hotel, who refused to offer us a late checkout after the race on Sunday. She said, “We have two big buses coming in that day, so we need all the rooms.” I’ve never had this problem before at a race, especially when I specifically request it during booking. It’s a minor thing, but we were forced to look into alternatives, which took up quite a bit of time and energy, because the last thing anyone wanted was to crowd into a car for 6-7 hours smelling like a marathon. If you’ve never smelled clothes after a marathon, I suggest you avoid it. Let’s just say, it’s not pleasant.

After a short run to knock off some of the rust from the car ride, we walked into town and found Saloon No. 10, which clearly had been a staple there since the days of Wild Bill Hikock and company. It was dark and sawdust covered the floor, which made Tony speculate that it might be a slight fire danger, and there was some sort of Old West show going on in the back, although we decided to skip it. We did notice that the waitress changed from her costume into jeans right after it was finished. Apparently, the costume is only required during certain hours. We had a couple of drinks and then headed out to find dinner. It seems that Kevin Costner opened up a casino in town sometime after filming “Dances With Wolves” in the area, and there was a good steak house in it. We never actually found it, so we settled on some other place. The steaks were mediocre, and the baked potatoes were only partially cooked, but we filled up anyway. With nothing much else to do, we sat down at a blackjack table. I’m usually not very lucky when gambling, but I went on a little run quickly and played with house money for a couple of hours. Despite losing a double down on a $25 bet, when the dealer had a five showing, I walked away with $75 and figured it covered my race entry.

Saturday was a long day. There just wasn’t much to do, except hiking, and that’s not the best idea the day before a race. We had a great breakfast on a patio downtown and discussed our options. We decided that after picking up our stuff at the race expo, we would drive 14 miles to Sturgis to see why all the bikers migrate there every August. It’s safe to say, we’re still wondering. There’s nothing there. It almost seemed like a ghost town. I guess a lot of bars and restaurants open up for the biker rally and then shut down again. It’s a very strange place. We did get a kick out of a building with the name “Dick and Jane’s Naughty Spot and Chinese Food.” I can’t be sure if it’s one place or two, but I like to assume it’s an establishment where you can pick up both chicken lo mein and lingerie in one transaction. From what I heard, it’s also the only Chinese restaurant within about 300 miles. I can’t confirm that, but I’m pretty sure it was probably the best place in town. We drove back to the hotel and turned on some terrible movie on the television. It wasted some time, but after a while we all got restless. Gulches of Fun amusement park was connected to the hotel, so we headed over to play some miniature golf and ride the go-carts. It’s pretty amazing what you’ll resort to when your choices are this limited.

Dean, Ryan and Brian got into town on Saturday evening, and we made plans to meet up at the official race hotel, which was offering pasta specials in their restaurants. While we were waiting for them to arrive, we headed back to the blackjack tables, where I quickly lost $80. So much for the race entry being covered, but at least I walked away down only $5. I don’t think Tony was so lucky. If you haven’t gotten the drift yet, the entire trip was just a little strange. That continued when we figured out the pasta dinner was in a sports bar, and we were told that all the pasta dishes were taking at least an hour. I have no idea how spaghetti and meatballs could possibly take more than about 15 minutes, and I guess they didn’t either because it actually came out less than 20 minutes after I ordered. We get spoiled when we run in the major cities. Restaurants and stores are so easy to find, and they’re usually open. In places like Deadwood, there are few choices and hours of operation are limited. So on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a convenience store, hoping to find some things for breakfast before the race. I would not call it a successful stop. We were slightly more successful at the hotel, however, when we somehow convinced the receptionist to give us the room until 1 p.m. the following day. It was going to be cutting it close, but it was worth a shot.

Finally, Sunday came around. Race morning is always interesting. It’s a little bit excitement, a little bit nervousness and a whole lot of logistics, like how do you get to the starting line. We decided to drive to the parking area at the town’s rodeo grounds, where we caught a school bus to Rochford. We ended up on the last bus, and so did a lot of other people. School buses fit two people per seat, uncomfortably. Maybe three young children could fit, but as we discovered, three adults trying to share the bench made for a cramped ride. It was crowded and hot, and we had at least 26.2 miles to drive. I often prefer point-to-point courses because they’re generally more interesting, and you know you aren’t going to double back on any of it. However, driving the entire course right before running it makes you realize just how far you have to go. And it’s intimidating.

It's hard to fake a smile this much when

you feel like you're going to hurl.

They dropped us off at an old church in Rochford, and we stood around for a little over an hour. It’s strange some of the things I notice at races, but this was the first I’d ever seen where there was one line for about 15 port-a-potties. Generally, there would be 15 lines or so. This made so much more sense. I don’t know why more races don’t encourage it. Granted, the line was so long that I stood in it and then walked directly to the back to wait again.

The start was the only portion on the roads. We circled through Rochford, which wasn’t much more than a couple of houses, and then got on the trail. I knew the elevation of this race going in. The first half was uphill. The second half was downhill. It’s actually a great course setup, if you’re trained for it. I wasn’t trained for it. But that turned out to be the least of my problems.

At Mile 8, I felt like a colt was trying to kick out of my belly. I winced and tried to will the pain away. I thought I just needed to find a toilet, so I battled on until the halfway point. Since the half marathon started 13.1 miles into our race, I knew they would have some set up. Those five miles were tough. Uphill is hard enough, but when your body is not cooperating, it’s brutal. I finally made it, only to discover that wasn’t the problem. It was nausea, and it wasn’t going away. I was fine when I walked, but running seemed to shake things up too much. Based on the course, I was hoping for a negative split in this race, since the second half was all downhill. I wouldn’t get it. For the next 13.1 miles, I ran stretches of about a quarter mile and then had to walk to settle my stomach. It was probably the most frustrated I’ve ever been in a race. I wasn’t at peak condition, but I know my legs had more in them. But my insides wouldn’t let me push them.

Fortunately, the Mickelson Trail is beautiful at the worst moments and breathtaking at the best. My race turned into a semi-hike through the woods. We ran along rivers, over bridges and through meadows. Despite my issues, I loved the course. I kept thinking how great it must be to have a trail like that near your home that you could run on a regular basis. Of course, I wouldn’t want to live in South Dakota, but if you put it near Denver, it would be ideal. I struggled on, looking at my watch frequently – not because I was concerned about my time, but because I was worried about getting back to the hotel before we were kicked out. Seriously. This is not something I want to worry about during a race, and it was infuriating that I needed to. We offered to pay for the extra time and the place had extra rooms available (we checked), but they were going to charge us more than our nightly rates if we kept it past 1 p.m. Needless to say, I will not be staying at a Comfort Inn anytime in the near future, especially when Marriott (regardless of which brand) has always been so accommodating.

This course was scenic but challenging.

I finally made it to the finish in 4:57. It was nearly an hour longer than I was hoping, and it gave me all of three minutes to get back to the hotel and showered. Tony picked me up and we decided to test squatter’s rights. We were happy that the housekeepers were busy cleaning the rooms around ours, and they didn’t seem to mind, so we held on until about 1:45 p.m.

As bad as my race was, it could have been a lot worse. The entire second half of the race, I was worried that the other five guys would all be trying to hold the room for me. As it turned out, I was the third one in there. Ryan was running with Tony, Dean and Brian, and they all seemed to be going along just fine. Suddenly, at Mile 22 the guys looked at Ryan and realized his face was completely covered in salt. He was the only one of us who was not from Colorado, having flown in from Toronto the day before, and he was hurting, and nobody had even realized it. He sat down, and immediately his toes curled up. He was really dehydrated, which wasn’t too surprising since the temperature was pushing the upper 70s (although there had been a nice breeze, cooling everyone off a little). They tried to keep going, but at the Mile 24 aid station, Ryan was loaded into a car and driven to the med tent at the finish area. They put him on a cot, and loaded two IV bags into him over the next two hours. After we checked out of the hotel, we went to check on him and found him in high spirits, making jokes and smiling. I even snapped a few pictures of him with Dean and Brian posing around him. We headed back into town to find a lunch spot, figuring the other guys would join us shortly.

Mere minutes before Mr. Carey became a legend.

And then Ryan Carey moved into marathon lore. After laying around with an IV in his arm for two hours, he was discharged. As he was walking out the door, he turned to the other two and said, “Take me back to Mile 24. I’m finishing.” So, they did. When they showed up at the restaurant without Ryan, the three of us couldn’t believe it. But about 25 minutes later, while we were finishing our burgers and beers, Ryan came strolling in with a medal around his neck and a smile on his face. As it turned out, all six of us struggled on the challenging course, but we all made it through. And after it was over, we were all smiling and laughing. It was a strange trip, but I think all of us enjoyed it.