A Canadian human rights lawyer and ultrarunner is hoping her latest racing achievement will inspire new moms to do things that “make them feel human again.”
Stephanie Case competed in and won her first ultramarathon in three years this past weekend at the Ultra-Trail Snowdonia race in Eryri, Wales, and she did it while taking time to breastfeed her six-month-old daughter.
“I signed up for this race after I had already given birth to my daughter, Pepper,” Case told CTV News Toronto in an interview.
“I am scheduled to do a 100-mile race in Colorado in July, and because I haven’t raced in so many years, I thought I should do a practice run to shake out the cobwebs and make sure that I knew how to put one foot in front of the other and also practice doing the breastfeeding stops for my daughter midrace.”
Case was born in Kingston, Ont., and grew up in Toronto and Oakville.
She now lives in Chamonix, France and is a self-described “ultrarunner” a passion that keeps her “sane and slightly insane” alongside her job as a human rights lawyer.
“I was never very sporty growing up – I was a total school nerd. I remember I did one running race when I was about nine years old, but I was so embarrassed and shy because my face had turned red at the end. I just didn’t really have the confidence to keep running after that, so I didn’t come back to running until quite a bit later in life,” she said.
Despite setting records and reaching the podium at the Hardrock 100 in 2022– the race she’s running again this July – Case spent three years away from running after struggling with fertility issues.
“I suffered two miscarriages and then went through three rounds of IVF in order to be able to get to the stage of having a successful pregnancy,” said Case. “It was quite difficult during that time, because there were a lot of questions from well-meaning people about whether the running had potentially impacted my ability to carry a child, or whether it had caused the miscarriages. While there’s no research that shows that [running impacted my fertility], it did change my relationship with it. I ended up feeling quite guilty and was filled with doubt every time I put on my running shoes.”
Case said she didn’t want to put any pressure on herself to come back to running after having her baby, so she didn’t originally strive for any specific performance metrics in the races she signed up for.
But her surprise win in Wales has since made Case the subject of international media attention. She was even featured in a story in People Magazine.
“As I started to run again postpartum at about six weeks, I started to get those benefits from being out on the trails again,” she said.
“I realized that actually, yeah, I can set a higher goal for myself. Why not try to do well in these races? Why not try to shoot for something that seems impossible? Why do I have to set the bar low at just participating? If I fail, I fail, but at least I will have tried.”
While utilizing her two aid checkpoints to breastfeed Pepper – plus an extra one granted specially to Case solely for breastfeeding with no aid – she finished the 100-kilometre Ultra-Trail Snowdonia race in 16 hours, 53 minutes, and 22 seconds and she did it starting 30 minutes behind the first group of elite runners.
“When you run and you complete races, you get a score – an index – and often, when you are signing up for races, your score will indicate where you can start in the field,” Case explained.
“Because I haven’t raced in quite a while, I had no index, so it was like I was starting from ground zero. I was in the third and last starting wave, which meant that there were hundreds of runners in front of me already out on the trail that I needed to pick my way through.”
Case says she’s still not sure what her plan is for racing the Hardrock 100 next month alongside breastfeeding Pepper, but she’s just happy the interest in her recent achievement is shining a spotlight on what new moms are capable of – in any shape or form.
“I’m incredibly happy if what I did this past weekend has helped to inspire other new moms, but I just want to make sure it doesn’t feed into this narrative that moms have to and should be doing it all,” Case said.
“Doing it all means keeping yourself healthy and happy and keeping your baby healthy and happy. Whether you are chilling out on the couch or running a 100-kilometre race, it’s different for every person. So, I just want to make sure I’m not setting an impossible standard. I think it’s important to set big goals if that’s what you want to do but also give yourself a break if that’s what you need.”
