In the mid aughts of the 21st Century, my brother and I were pretty big fans of the current zeitgeistian show Deadwood. Somewhere along the way we found out there was a Deadwood Marathon and, well, one thing led to another…
The race was one of the toughest I’ve ever done. It was 13.1 miles uphill and then of course 13.1 miles downhill… but that opening half took such a toll on us we struggled mightily. I have no regrets about doing it … mainly because I got to spend time with my brother. But for the longest time it was my PW clock time. But hardly my personal worst experience, thanks to Steve.
We road tripped through the Mid-West, stopping at the Corn Palace of Mitchell, SD;
Made an obligatory detour to the free ice water capital of the world, Wall Drug (where the hell is Wall Drug? In the middle of nowhere, man!);
We took in the colossal achievement of Mount Rushmore,
…and wandered through the Badlands,
…before ultimately putting down stakes in Deadwood.
Sure, sure… we dashed out to Devil’s Tower even though it looked nothing like the mashed potatoes we had seen…
…but the longest stretch was strolling the streets of the weirdly depressed former Western town. And of course riding a bus and then running 26.2 miles back into said town.
It was the height of the HBO show’s popularity and trinkets and doodads galore overflowed from the souvenir shops that lined main street. But then as now I usually preferred snapping photos to picking up baubles (with notable exceptions!)… thus sprinkled throughout this post are a few hastily searched for pics from 2006, copied straight off my cloud drive.
At the request of the survivors,
the names have been changed.
Out of respect for the dead,
the rest has been told exactly
as it occurred. (*)
(*) Although, to be honest, I did skip over a lot of the later photos when Steve and I were looking particularly rough.
Love you, Steve. Glad to be your running buddy… even happier to be your brother.