How much larger than the relaxation time can the mixing time be?
This paper shows that $t_{\mathrm{mix}} = O(kt_{\mathrm{rel}}\log t_{\mathrm{rel}})$ for all Markov chains and that $t_{\mathrm{mix}} = O(kt_{\mathrm{rel}})$ for reversible chains. The conjecture in the question is false since it's shown that $t_{\mathrm{mix}}$ can be as large as $kt_{\mathrm{rel}}.$

http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8021