We did it! We ran 26.2 miles at the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon and survived to tell the tale! Actually we briskly hiked the first thirteen in 14-15 minute miles, then ran the last half in 9:30-11:00 minute miles, which averaged out to a finish time of 5:56. Whatever, it was a blast, and we felt pretty good even at the end. Chuck would like to improve his time but I’m pretty happy with mine, and with the amount of training that went into getting that time.

But first: we arrived in Deadwood June 1 after an uneventful flight from Los Angeles. Chuck stayed up til 3 in the morning the day we left trying to get caught up with work-related duties after spending a little too much time during the day playing with our new toy, a Garmin Nuvi 350, that we wanted to take with us. As we had to get up at 3:45am to catch our flight, this left him a tad sleep deprived. The only disappointment came when we arrived at the place we were staying: the Bullock Express. This was our fault entirely. For reasons best known to, well, not us, we registered for the race but didn’t bother to make reservations in Deadwood. By the time we got around to doing so, about four weeks before leaving, all of the good (non-smoking) rooms were gone. So the Bullock Express (and trust me, the photographs are really too flattering) was the best we could do – kind of divey and on the wrong end of town, but clean with non-smoking rooms.

That first day we walked downtown and scoped out the place. I was last in Deadwood in about 1992, just a few years after they passed the law that legalized low-stakes gambling in South Dakota. Back in those days, Deadwood was a dying town, a favored location only to history buffs who enjoyed seeing the place where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Lo these many years later, Deadwood is home to 37 casinos and is a hopping place. Who knew? Not me, obviously. We ended up eating that night at a dive of a place called Oyster Bay (as featured, for reasons that completely escape me, on HBO, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel), where you could get something called “Walk the Plank” – seven oyster shooters, each one hotter than the last. If you could knock back all seven, they gave you a free t-shirt (which, as Chuck pointed out, wasn’t very free, considering the seven shooters cost $22.95!). We were thinking that Deadwood dining left something to be desired, based on this experience.

The next day we met up with our friend Sumalee and her friend Jill and went to the race expo to pick up numbers, etc. then rented bikes for an extremely warm ride on the marathon course. Highs were in the upper 80s that day, and we began to think that the marathon was going to be a scorcher. The course was beautiful: all well maintained trail, just as we’d expected. Back in Deadwood, we watched a shootout, then ate dinner that night at a great place (yes, we finally found one): Jake’s at the Midnight Star, which is owned by Kevin Costner, of all people. it really is a fabulous place, and we had a very nice meal. Afterwards we watched the capture of Wild Bill’s killer Jack McCall, all of which happens nightly (except Saturdays) in the summer at 7:30pm. At 8pm we attended the Trial of Jack McCall, which was very entertaining and audience-participatory (Chuck was chosen as a juror which really put him on the spot as he by this time was very tired having only slept 45 minutes the night before so he kept nodding off which would have been a bigger problem except post spinal surgery his head doesn’t droop so he can sleep sitting up without people catching on).

We woke up bright and early on Saturday for the annual Volksmarch up to the top of the Crazy Horse Memorial. It was a fun 6-mile hike – we bushwhacked through about three miles of single track trail only to burst out about 3/4 of the way up the huge gravel road that goes right to the base of the memorial. The collective surprise of the crowd when they realized that they’d been led on a completely superfluous forced hike was a kick. We all got medals (well, those of us who forked over an extra seven dollars did, anyway) and worked up a good sweat. After the hike we drove to Mt. Rushmore then headed back to rest up for the marathon the next day. We went to the carbo-load dinner that night for our pre-marathon meal.

In the next exciting episode: we run the marathon! Here’s a Flash movie of the shootout we watched, and another of a bit of the trial of Jack McCall (you can see Chuck snoozing in the background if you look closely).