Running through rain, mist, and mud, Terry Bailey, vice-chancellor for the Diocese of Marquette, participated in a 50-mile ultramarathon trail run on Aug. 17, 2024. Bailey said that a big inspiration for him as he took part was Venerable Bishop Frederic Baraga. Bailey completed 31 miles of the 50-mile event he registered for. The race is called the Marquette Trail 50, in which runners participate in a 50 km (31-mile) trail run or a 50-mile trail run and attempt to traverse the peaks of Sugarloaf, Top-of-the-World, Bareback, and Hogback Mountain in Marquette.
Bailey spent months prior researching hydration, nutrition management and other information. At the beginning of 2024 he created an eight-month plan to prepare for the ultramarathon. Bailey’s plans changed as he was appointed as vice-chancellor for the diocese, his family moved into their new home, and they welcomed their fourth baby.
Eventually Bailey’s wife, Valerie, made sure he submitted time off work periodically for multi-hour runs and helped coordinate specific training days. “I needed to acknowledge I was about to do something hard with not enough training.” He constantly thought of and prayed alongside Bishop Baraga during the run. “When I focused on the mindset he must’ve had, I wasn’t concerned about the fact I didn’t train like I wanted to,” Bailey said. “I couldn’t help but think that he must’ve had the mentality of, ‘What choice do I have but to complete this mission? If the outcome is inevitable good, then I have to finish.’”
A tip that Bailey learned through his research of ways to prepare for an ultramarathon was to offer up miles for specific people or causes. He made a laminated list of people or groups he wanted to offer the efforts of each mile for and kept it on his hydration pack. “I kept my family towards the end of the list knowing that the further I got into the run, the more fatigue I’d feel. I wanted those offerings to be a little stronger for my wife and children.”
Over the more than eight hours he spent running, Bailey said he listened to music for only about 10 minutes and the rest of the time was spent in simple thought and prayer. “There is something truly amazing about the power of surrendering yourself. When it comes to committing to it, I sometimes hesitate. I get nervous letting go of control sometimes. Being on the trails, more than 20 miles into a run that had already broken me down physically and mentally, my walls were gone. I had surrendered. Offering miles, praying, asking for clarity, and saying on repeat, ‘God, please speak, I’m listening’ was life changing.”
Bailey previously served in the Coast Guard and was honorably discharged. He said that the separation from the military was a quick process, and that his life had changed course very fast. The change took him time to get used to, but he found clarity in the race after his years of trying to adjust to a new routine for his life. “I knew where I was heading in life, and with an almost serendipitous realization, it was what I was doing the whole time while running: heading to a finish line where my family was. Life is a bumpy ride, very much like this tough run, and when you get through the hard stuff, you’ve got the people you love the most rooting for you at the finish line,” he said.
“I signed up for this race because I thought I needed a physically demanding task … because I thought I needed it to fulfill what I thought I lost leaving the military,” Bailey said. “I told myself nearly a year before this race, ‘I need to process whatever is going on in my life so I can align it with God’s will for me.’”
Thinking about Bishop Baraga helped Bailey get into a good spiritual mindset. “I think we can all admit that there is just something so amazing about him—the grit he must’ve had.” He recalled the occasion when Bishop Baraga trekked 57 miles during a U.P. winter through a sparsely inhabited region between L’Anse and Copper Harbor to baptize a child that was in danger of facing death. “This is the mentality I mentioned before of ‘what choice do I have but to complete this mission?’ … This was Bishop Baraga’s mindset, and I had to have the same to make this run happen,” Bailey said.
A memorable moment Bailey recalled was around mile 22 when he reached into the pocket of his soaking wet hydration pack, trying to pull out a bag of ibuprofen. “I pulled out—forgetting I even had this—a Bishop Baraga prayer card. Confused, I looked down at the soggy wallet-sized card and saw his face,” Bailey said. “I didn’t even need to read the card. I knew just by looking at him that I needed to snap out of my frustrations. I almost felt Bishop Baraga telling me, ‘This is what I did for a living.’ I picked up the pace for a few miles and stopped my interior whining.”
Bailey said the experience was life changing. “I did not complete the full 50 mile run which I had set out for, but I did finish the race I had been running for a long time. I completed the 31-mile portion of the trail run and left the Forestville campground, where the race was hosted, over the moon. … I discovered on that course a sense of clarity I needed to feel for a long time, and just how incredible a human can be.”