PONTIAC — Sara Barron ran a mile race in the fifth grade. In knee braces. She tripped, but she got up and finished it.

At Marist Academy, a middle school sharing the same campus with Pontiac Notre Dame Preparatory — from where she graduated this spring — she was running the 800- and 1600-meter races faster than the girls in the high school.

On the Prep track team, she was a teammate for a year with her older sister, Elizabeth. “She was my role model,” Sara said of her sister who’s three years her elder, “but I found that I liked running on my own.”

Positively, Sara is one of the elite girls distance runners in the Midwest. At the Michigan Division 2 finals, Sara ran the 1600-meter in 4:51.67 for a new state record, and an hour later, she won the 800-meter for the second year in a row. “The 1600 took a lot out of me, but this was my last high school race. I just had to do it,” she said.

A week later, at the Midwest Meet of Champions in Fort Wayne featuring the cream of the crop from Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, Sara won the 800-meter in 2:09.05, the third-best time in the meet’s 22 years — and her lifetime personal best.

She’s left her mark in the Catholic League, too. Her 4:47.35 in the 1600 in the CHSL Finals in May was a record-setter, as well as the fastest time in that event this year in the state. Her name is on a handful of school records.

“She has guts,” said Adam Frezza, her distance coach for her high school career. “She did everything we asked her to do. She takes any challenge and makes a positive out of it.”
Sara was named an MHSAA Scholar-Athlete and winner of the Michigan Wendy’s High School Heisman, both awards recognizing her athletic achievements, excellent academic record (4.2 GPA) and involvement as a coach in the YMCA’s Girls on the Run, a program for 8- to 13-year-old girls, combining training for a 3.1-mile running event with self-esteem enhancing, uplifting workouts.

“The awards and records are fun, but I keep pushing myself to get to the level that I think I can be,” she said. “I always want to do better.”

Sara puts herself through a rigorous regimen. In addition to strength training and practices, she runs seven days a week, covering 50 to 70 miles, allowing herself a day off every two weeks.

“I’m all by myself, a lot of time to think,” Sara said. “There’s a spiritual aspect to running. I talk to God. I feel closer to Him.”

She also has the time to reflect on what she calls “the bigger picture,” which will have a different focus starting in August when she enrolls on an athletic scholarship at Vanderbilt University.

In addition to her passion for running, Sara is equally passionate about music, her “fun hobby,” she calls it. She has sung lead roles in school and community theater productions, composed songs, loves attending concerts, and plays the guitar.

She admits there are moments when she’s running, music pops in her head, “and I’ll run to the beat.”

Though she was recruited by the likes of Michigan State and Notre Dame for her outstanding running prowess, Vanderbilt was her No. 1 choice — located as it is in Nashville, Tenn., the Music City.

“I’ll get an education and be around music. It’s everything I want.”