Detroit Cristo Rey teacher becomes first woman to complete run across Michigan

Sarah Porter completes weeklong, 219-mile run from South Haven to Lake St. Clair: 'At no point did I think I wouldn't finish'

DETROIT — Should the cross-country team at Detroit Cristo Rey High School ever complain about the amount of training miles they have to put in, they probably won’t get much sympathy from their coach, Sarah Porter.

That’s because Porter recently completed a point-to-point run across Michigan’s Lower Peninsula — stretching from the pier in South Haven, at Lake Michigan, to the foot of 12 Mile Road at Champine Park in St. Clair Shores, at Lake St. Clair.

“The goal was lake-to-lake,” Porter told Detroit Catholic. “The official route was 217 miles, but my Strava (distance running software measurement) was over 219. It took me six and a half days total. I finished it (Monday, July 29) around 2:30. Since then, I’ve just been kind of recovering.”

Why did Porter, a psychology and history teacher at the southwest Detroit school, undertake such a Herculean run?

“Somebody else had done it before. I found a fastest known time website that keeps track of ultra-distance running,” she said. “I saw that a man had done it two springs ago, but there weren’t any marks for women. I thought I should try to get a woman’s name on there.”

Porter started planning her journey as far back as December 2023 — not just selecting the route, but developing a training program, locating places to camp, recruiting family members to travel along in a support vehicle, and learning how to stay healthy along the way.

“My preferred distance for racing is the (13.1 mile) half-marathon — I’ve done a few this year,” she said. “But this is an entirely different kind of training. Going at race-pace is not sustainable. I planned for a lot of four- and five-hour runs. I planned to do 30-35 miles each day.”

Generally, Porter started early in the morning with a goal of finishing 20 miles by lunch. After a lunch break and a change of clothes, she would pick it up where she left off later in the afternoon with a shorter run of about 10-15 miles.

“I ran at a much slower pace — long, slow distance,” she said. “I read every blog of someone who had done ultra-marathons. Their best advice was to fuel your gut — what gels am I going to use, what protein drinks am I going to drink. You need to get your body used to what you will be doing, but still, after three or four days, your body starts to notice the effects.”

For the most part, she enjoyed the route, which took her across the Kal-Havel State Park Trail, through Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Albion, Gregory, Pinckney and Brighton. The final stretch, through Metro Detroit, was a straight shot across 12 Mile Road from Farmington Hills to St. Clair Shores.

“It was all kinds of trails, all kinds of terrain,” she said. “I’m used to running around here. I live in southwest Detroit, so I’m used to sidewalks. But now I’m a big fan of running on trails and grass.”

Naturally, completing the route became challenging at times.

“Sometimes, it would just be a trail in between empty fields without a lot of shade,” Porter said. "The one thing I was not expecting is places where there’s no shoulder for running. There were a couple places just east of Battle Creek where it was almost highway running — I spent almost eight miles dodging highway traffic.”

She didn’t hesitate to keep going, though.

“I was committed to doing it in seven days,” she said. “There was a day I had a bit of a scare and wondered if I would have to walk the rest of the way, but at no point did I think I wouldn’t finish. I was thinking of it not in terms of total mileage, but pounding out the next five-mile segment, and that made it easier.”

Porter said her family was “incredible” by following her route in a Winnebago, where they usually spent the nights, but they also offered nourishment and iced towels when the temperature got very warm. Her sister, Carly, and brother, Alex, joined her to run various segments of about 10 miles.

Porter used the trip to raise money and awareness for two organizations: The Teacher Salary Project, which raises awareness of the need to increase teacher pay, and Girls on the Run, a program for third-through-eighth-grade girls teaching life skills through running.

“This is my 14th year teaching, the last three at Cristo Rey, and before that, 11 in public schools,” Porter said. “As everybody knows, teacher salary is lacking. TSP is doing a lot of work to raise the issues, (such as) the disparity of pay from state-to-state, the disparity of teachers with advanced degrees to those in other fields. I just think it’s important to have our country have that conversation.

“Girls on the Run completely makes sense to me,” she continued. “My hope is to get our team at Cristo Rey involved in their celebration race. I worked with Girls on the Run’s Greater Detroit chapter, and they are going to pair me up with a school.”

As of Aug. 2, Porter exceeded her $5,000 fundraising goal by $695, and her GoFundMe page will remain open for about another week.

Porter said her favorite parts of the journey were the start and the finish.

“The beginning part was really nice; the Kal-Haven Trail was kept up. I didn’t see one piece of trash for 40 miles,” Porter said. “As you get closer to home, you see the places you’ve run. I grew up in Roseville and my mother lives in Warren. I was able to spend the last night sleeping at her house.”

She finally reached the Lake St. Clair shoreline on Monday afternoon, after running for 53 and a half hours. The official “fastest known time” criteria is elapsed time, so Porter establishes a baseline mark of 6 days, 7 hours, 8 minutes and 48 seconds for others to chase.

“I assume someone else would come along and beat my record, and that would be good,” Porter said. “Maybe it will be me in a few years, if I go back again and do it faster.”

Which prompts the question: what does Porter plan to tackle next?

"We have a group chat with the family, and I literally just texted them, ‘What now?’” she said. “I guess I’ll just look for the next race, but I definitely feel inspired to keep doing things that are challenging.”