Deadman Peaks 53 Mile—Some Days Just Don’t Go as Planned
It’s quite possible I was as fit as I’ve ever been going into Deadman Peaks. I’d only been doing 60-70 miles per week, but those included speedwork, hill repeats, and some tough long-runs, including a solid 14 th place performance at the Mount Taylor 50k. To cap off training, my friend Michael and I did a solid long run consisting of 14 mountainous miles with 4000’ of climbing and descent, followed by 9 miles hard on the road with the first half downhill and the second half uphill (~150 feet of elevation change per mile). I averaged around 6:30 min/mile for the downhill portion and 8:15 for the uphill portion. But at the start line of Deadman peaks, I stepped aside to fix my shoes with 10 seconds to go until the start, and that was the beginning of what felt like a long and difficult day. Once the race started, I began behind by ab...