When Stephanie Case entered a 100-kilometer (around 62 miles) ultrarunning race through the Welsh mountains, winning was far from her mind.
Six months postpartum and still breastfeeding her infant daughter Pepper, Case’s only real aim was to finish the Ultra-Trail Snowdonia by UTMB in North Wales’ Eryri National Park and make sure her daughter was fed, having received special permission from race organizers to stop at an additional point to do so.
In fact, it wasn’t until the end of the grueling race that Case – whose three-year hiatus from running meant that she set off in the third wave, far behind the elite runners – was informed that her finish time made her the winner of the women’s competition.
This, in spite of the fact that she had stopped to feed Pepper three times during the run, which was included in her total race time.
“That was a huge shock. I wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t even on my radar that that could have happened,” Case told CNN Sports.
Pictures of her taking part in the race in May have since gone viral, and the response has been overwhelming, according to the ultra runner.
“It wasn’t something I kind of strategized or planned ahead of time, but what it tells me is that we really aren’t telling enough stories about new moms kind of doing all sorts of things, living full and complete, multi dimensional lives.”
Mixed reactions to success
Case said she thinks the photos show that “life doesn’t stop when you become a mom, and it’s just another layer to who you are as a person.
“We all have mom guilt, but it’s important for new moms to know that it’s okay to prioritize the things that make them full and complete human beings because that will make them better parents in the long run – because we are multi dimensional.
She added to CNN: “Becoming a mom, it’s one of the most physical and emotional transformations you can go through in your entire life. And so if there are things that you can hold on to – for me, it’s running – that kind of remind you that everything that has changed, there are some things that remain constant, there are some parts of your identity that you haven’t lost.”
Case, who turns 43 this month, started ultrarunning almost 18 years ago when, after finishing her first marathon, she was looking for another challenge.
She got pretty good at it too, racing across North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Africa.
But Case, an international human rights lawyer by day, took a three-year hiatus from the sport after suffering several miscarriages as she and her partner tried to have a child.
“I got some questions from people around whether it was the running that caused the miscarriage. And of course, there’s no medical evidence, there’s no science to back that up, but it did plant the seed of doubt in my head, and really changed my relationship with running,” she told CNN Sports.
“Running, instead of it being a source of stress relief and a source of joy for me, it turned into something quite different,” she explained.
After Pepper’s birth and getting the all clear from her doctor, Case started running again six weeks postpartum.
“It felt physically weird, strange. I thought my organs were going to fall out, but at the same time, I felt like a runner again. I felt like me again,” she explained.
Starting so far back in the Ultra Trail Snowdonia, she said, was “perhaps a blessing in disguise because it really took the pressure off. Starting the third wave kind of solidified to me that I couldn’t have any performance goals because I was starting so far back.”
Although the race already had stopping checkpoints at 20 km and 80 km, Case knew she would need to feed Pepper in between, so she requested and got permission to get assistance at the 50 km checkpoint.
“It meant that my partner, John, could only hand me Pepper. He couldn’t help me with any of my bottles, with my pack, with anything else I needed to do with food for myself.
“I had to manage everything myself and also make sure that Pepper was taken care of. So it was a whole other layer of logistics that I had never experienced before. Pepper is used to kind of feeding mid-training runs, but we’ve never done it in a race situation,” she explained.
‘It should be about choice’
While Case has received many positive responses to her win, she has also received numerous “misogynistic, paternalistic” comments.
“(They were) saying: ‘Does she spend any time with her baby? She should be at home. Why didn’t she wait?’ Comments about my looks or my age, really just trying to criticize anything that they saw me doing,” Case said.
Other messages, she explained, came from moms “who were quite worried that this image and this story was contributing to this idea of setting this impossibly high standard that women can’t reach.”
“Some moms are exhausted and they’re just trying to get through the day,” Case said. “And so the idea that they not only have to be mom, but they also have to have a career, and they have to regain their fitness and now running ultra marathons and breastfeed just made them feel really bad about themselves, and I think that that’s part of the patriarchal society that we live in, that we’re taught to compete with one another.
“Everything we do as new moms, it becomes scrutinized and judged, and we just need the space to be able to navigate that journey on our own, to figure out what motherhood looks like for each of us, individually,” she added.
“For me, it means running 100k and, you know, doing all the things that make me happy and for others, it could be running a 5k or, you know, joining a book club, or, you know, something totally different.”
Next up for Case is the Hardrock 100, a 100-mile run with 33,197 feet of climb and 33,197 feet of descent in Colorado in July.
“It should be about choice. I mean, that’s the whole point. Women can do all of this if they want, if they have the support, if XYZ, fall into place. If the stars align, if they choose to go after that, then they should be provided the support and the encouragement and the resources to be able to pursue all the things that they want – but they don’t have to.”
