Stephanie Case won an ultramarathon race in Wales, traveling more than 60 miles on damaged terrain – and stopping three times to breastfeed her 6 month old baby, Pepper.
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In ultimate sport, athletes often challenge human limits. But during a recent 100 -kilometer race in Wales, a runner brought it to another level.
As we can see in photos that quickly became viral, runner – and new mom – Stephanie Case sat at three points along the demanding race course to breastfeed her six -month -old daughter. The case has not only finished the race; She first placed herself among the competitors.
“Well, it was a surprise,” case Written on InstagramPublishing photos of her nourishing her daughter while carrying her racing file and her equipment. “I won?!?”
The case had no idea of the victory awaited him at Ultra-trained snowdonia Breed in the north of the Wales. After a three -year break from the competition, she was just happy to run again. And to have a daughter, pepper, after a long journey which included two false layers.
“I think the answer was extremely positive,” said Case, 42
For her, the photos show “an athlete being a mother at the same time, and these things are not really in competition.”
“We don’t have to get lost by becoming mom and we can continue to set great goals,” she said.
On the practical level, the feat of box raises a key question: how did she make sure to obtain enough calories to propagate herself and a whole other human during an ultramarathon?
“It’s not just during the race,” she said. “It is also in training, to make sure that my milk supply was not affected. It is not easy. I feel like I am eating all the time, but becoming a mom made me much more effective in my training and in my refueling strategies.”
Case, a Canadian human rights lawyer currently based in Chamonix in France said his coach, Dr. Megan Roche, has helped perfect these strategies.
“During the race, I took about 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrates per hour,” she said. “And I kept that up to about 65k, then I had to remove a little because I became quite nauseous. And then I took it back and I was made in a way at 95k.
“This is where I started to get Really Nausea, “she said, laughing.
The ultra -surruners say to a “rock wall”
“It’s surprisingly technical,” explains Case about the Snowdonia course, who says the organizers have 6,500 meters of altitude gain (21,325 feet). Ultrarunners must cross Snow (known in Welsh as Wyddfa), the highest mountain in Wales, and sail on damaged land, swampy fields with steep crests and hard shales.
“This is not what you think is a typical race race,” explains Case. In some sections, she adds: “Really, it’s almost like blurring or climbing, where you go up in a way a vertical rock wall.”
The case finished with more than 4 p.m. and 53 minutes. But she initially had no idea where she had Placed in the race. As she had not contributed in recent years, Case has not worked with the main group of elite runners – it started 30 minutes later – and had no sense of their pace.
The Case partner brought pepper to the control points of 20, 50 and 80 kilometers. She obtained a special authorization for the appointment at 50 kilometers, on the stipulation that she could not receive aid during the stop.
It was only when the race managers confirmed the time recorded by his follow -up chip that the extremely unexpected results emerged: a new mother at the start of the forties – who stopped to breastfeed her baby along the exhausting course – placed first among the more than 60 finals.
Stephanie Case says she wondered after having had her daughter: “Can I still call me athlete?”
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Welcome a new stage in a trip of almost three years
Case won the ultramarathon on parental leave of his work by working for the United Nations as a lawyer for human rights. His career previously took him to countries like Afghanistan and South Sudan – places to run long distances helps to work in a humanitarian crisis.
The experiences inspired her to found Free to runA non -profit organization that allows girls and young women in conflict areas by running and other outdoor activities.
For the case, the Welsh race in mid-May was its first major competition since the summer of 2022: the Hardrock Endurance race Hunger Mile in Colorado.
“I had second place in this race, and I was really very happy,” she recalls.
Then the case learned that she was pregnant – “And unfortunately, she found herself in a miscarriage,” she said.
“People wondered if it was the race that had really caused the miscarriage,” she said. “And there is no science or medical research to indicate this link, but he planted a seed of doubt in my head.”
Once a sanctuary of stress, the case began to wonder if the race was “something that was in fact not beneficial for me or useful for my attempts to have a family”.
She started to withdraw from the race. But when she got pregnant and made a miscarriage again, “people wondered if it was the stress of my work that caused the miscarriage,” she said.
“I felt like I was just lost unanswered, without a clear path on what to do,” explains Case. “When I lost the current part of me, it was an essential part of my identity. It was who I was, how I identified myself, how I went in a way in the world. And suddenly I had it.”
“I was facing sorrow and all the emotions around loss of pregnancy and infertility,” explains Case. “So when I was finally able to get a successful pregnancy thanks to IVF, I started running again in the second trimester, not in the first trimester at all.”
She felt more confident about her pregnancy, she said – to a certain point.
“Even at 39 weeks, I just couldn’t relax. Once you have missed a layer, no matter what statistics say. Anyone doesn’t matter that every doctor in the world tells you:” Everything will be fine. “You don’t really believe it until you see this baby.”
The race victory began with a simple goal: to run
As a new parent, Case fought with a new question: how should it be seen?
“You know, do I now identify myself as a mom?” She remembers wondering. “What will happen with my career? Can I still call me athlete?”
It was a joy, she said, to go back to the race, to rekindle part of her identity which had become dormant.
“Once I started training, I really started to increase my goals,” she said.
His initial hope was simply to finish a race. But it was quickly replaced by greater ambitions.
“You know, why not set big goals?” Said the case. “And if I don’t do well, I’m not doing well. But let’s see what we can do.”
With this question now answered, Case is preparing for a familiar event: Hardrock 100.
“In about six weeks, I will come back to do the same race that made me pass this trip” in 2022, said Case.
This time, she will have pepper with her.
