TRAILS
A worthy journey
Delma torres bartelme is pictured during a run at afton state park.
Photo by Carly Danek
Recalling a marathon in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan BY DELMA TORRES BARTELME
T
he crowded ferry left before dawn, my fellow passengers
shadowy ghosts in the cold darkness. It was almost August, yet we were trying to warm our bodies with our arms, wrapping them around our chests. Our destination was Grand Island, half a mile off the coast of Munising, Michigan, on Lake Superior. I had barely slept a wink the night before, nervous about island logistics. In a few hours, when the sun finally gave features to our human shapes we would try to run 13 to 26 miles of trails through the island wilderness. The last time I had run trails was over five years ago when my husband Jim and I were still living in Michigan. Now, retired, we live in a cottage on one of Minnesota’s ten thousand lakes and my spirit was feeling restless. Perhaps it was the act of prioritizing the humdrum tasks on my
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JULY/AUGUST 2017
to do list giving me pause to wonder. Who cares which one I do first or last? No one would suffer or die if I didn’t get around to doing them at all. Certainly, I had more important things to do. None of which, by the way, were to be done here at my cottage. If escape was what I desired then it had to be done with purpose. Only then would it be worthy. “I signed us up for a trail half marathon for the last weekend in July,” I told my husband. “It’s in the Upper Peninsula. Right by the Picture Rocks National Lakeshore.” He knew seeing them had always been on my bucket list. The entry fee would be the least expensive part of this adventure in what the website called a wild protected landscape/seascape. The only available rooms left were in a budget motel going for the same price as a four star hotel in downtown Minneapolis. The Yelp reviews had commentary about torn curtains, moldy tile in the showers and threadbare towels.
