Stephanie Case arrives on the display screen for this digital interview together with her daughter, Pepper in tow. The three-month-old gurgles and smiles on the digicam, fully unaware of Case’s almost three-year battle with being pregnant that finally introduced her into the world. Pepper, whereas probably realizing on some primal degree that her mother is superb, doesn’t but know of the scope of the work Case has completed world wide, and particularly within the Center East and Central Asia, to champion ladies’s rights.
Case is at the moment dwelling in Chamonix, France, and hoping to increase her parental depart from her work as a United Nations human rights lawyer into the summer time, noting that she’d possible be someplace within the Center East if she weren’t on depart. Case might be finest recognized within the ultrarunning world for founding the non-profit Free to Run. With this system, which makes use of working and management packages to help younger ladies and ladies in battle areas, Case has completed what many individuals dream of: she’s turned her love for the game into one thing that advantages others.
Stephanie Case with associate John and daughter Pepper. All pictures courtesy of Stephanie Case, except in any other case famous.
Utilizing the very distinctive intersection of abilities of being a human rights lawyer, working in conflict zones, being an ultrarunner, and current as somebody who doesn’t imagine within the phrase not possible, she’s offered alternatives for numerous ladies in six international locations, together with Afghanistan and Iraq — international locations the place ladies are historically extremely restricted of their actions — to get out and run. The formation and operation of Free to Run was documented in a movie that toured movie festivals after it was launched on-line by The North Face. The movie, made by Dream Lens Media, received a number of awards.
Case has stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Free to Run however stays on the board and may be very concerned on a governance and strategic degree. Now, she’s turned her efforts to bringing gentle to the struggles of girls — and particularly runners — coping with infertility points. After two miscarriages and realizing how little info there was out there on fertility in endurance sports activities, she’s undertaken this latest movie challenge documenting her journey, together with these of different ladies, to changing into a mother.
In search of Limits
Born in Ontario, Canada, Case didn’t think about herself “sporty” rising up. She quips, “I used to be very a lot a nerd.” Pushed from the beginning, Case began working whereas in regulation faculty and signed up for a marathon. From the get-go, the purpose of working was to seek out her limits. “I believed the marathon was this epic, exhausting factor that you might do, a ticking-the-box life occasion,” she says, “ I believed it could change my life.” She’d watch movies of girls stumbling throughout marathon end strains, fully spent, and needed to know what it could be wish to “hit the wall and push by.”
After coaching and crossing the end line on the marathon, Case discovered she nonetheless had power within the tank and says she didn’t have any “massive, epic, difficult moments.” She admits, nearly sheepishly, “I didn’t discover it that onerous.” Including distance to her racing was the following logical step.
She discovered the 250-kilometer Racing the Planet: Vietnam, tried to recruit associates to race together with her, however determined to go alone when she couldn’t discover any takers. She admits there may need been a number of glasses of wine concerned within the determination to enroll. She says, “I needed to seek out one thing that I wasn’t certain I’d be capable of end.” She went on to win the ladies’s race and end third total, a end result that made her notice, “perhaps I wasn’t an incredible athlete in any sport earlier than that, however ultrarunning was my factor.”
She says, “I discovered that I bought a lot confidence and goal out of ultrarunning that I hadn’t been in a position to get by the rest.”
Stephanie Case at house within the Alps.
Within the meantime, she discovered herself working for a regulation agency in New York Metropolis in mergers and acquisitions, however she knew that it wasn’t a long-term profession. Even whereas in regulation faculty, she’d been keen on human rights. “I began performing some work for Attorneys With out Borders on trial observations and ended up sort of working for them within the subject throughout my summers all through regulation faculty. Liberia, Rwanda, that sort of factor.” Whereas she was working for the New York regulation agency, she continued to do professional bono work, increase her human rights portfolio. When Lehman Brothers crashed and mergers and acquisitions died, her regulation agency provided a beneficiant incentive for individuals to take a 12 months off. In Case’s phrases, “I stated, ‘Thanks very a lot.’ I took that and went and did human rights work within the U.Okay.”
In 2012, armed with a brand new Grasp of Legal guidelines in Worldwide Human Rights and Humanitarian Legislation, Case landed a volunteer place with the United Nations in Afghanistan. When requested what drew her to working in conflict zones, she says, “I had grown up by the Nineteen Nineties when the Taliban was in energy, and also you noticed these stark pictures of girls in burkas. It was one of many worst locations on the planet to be a lady. One thing simply drew me to that. It was to this point outdoors of my realm of understanding and my very own cultural context, and it was such an injustice.” She goes on to say, “I didn’t understand how I may assist however I knew that I needed to go to locations the place issues have been arguably at their worst as a result of that’s when there’s probably the most potential for constructive change.”
She moved into an armed compound the place the longest stretch of highway was 800 meters. Individuals instructed her she wouldn’t be capable of pursue her ultrarunning anymore. However these individuals didn’t notice that telling Case that she couldn’t do one thing was the easiest way to make sure that she would.
Redefining a Relationship with Operating
Operating in Afghanistan was a far cry from what most ultrarunners think about supreme coaching grounds. As a substitute of working in lovely landscapes, Case was restricted to working laps in her armed compound. Oftentimes, the air air pollution was so unhealthy she may really feel grit in her enamel after her run, her eyes would go crimson, and she or he would begin coughing after solely half-hour of working outdoors. Gone have been utilizing one of the best vitamin and equipment, changed as an alternative with barbed wire fences and items of wooden and trash littering the bottom.
As a substitute of lamenting what she not had, Case checked out her state of affairs as a chance. She says, “I needed to discover a method to develop my psychological capacities to show it into one thing lovely.” She goes on to say, “I used to be utilizing the rubbish as obstacles, pretending that they have been tree roots slightly than items of wooden or plastic.” She even discovered the constructive within the air high quality. She says, “The air pollution would give us actually lovely sunsets. I might run at sundown in order that a few loops across the compound could be at nightfall, and the following few in the dead of night. It will make the compound appear larger as a result of the scene would change.”
As a part of her time in Afghanistan, Case visited a shelter that housed ladies fleeing unsafe conditions of their properties, lots of them with youngsters. Case says of the ladies within the shelter, “That they had a tiny yard and a home they usually couldn’t [leave that area.] I do know that they’d have given their proper arm to have the ability to run within the compound that I used to be working in.” It gave perspective to Case’s compound laps.
“For me to complain or to make use of my lack of a really perfect coaching floor as an excuse to not sustain my working simply appeared ludicrous.”
Case in Afghanistan in 2017.
Free to Run
Case needed her working to be greater than a egocentric pursuit. Her preliminary thought was to make use of her racing to lift cash for that Afghan ladies’s shelter, in order that 12 months, she signed up for 3 ultramarathons and raised $10,000 for it. And Case’s response to her fundraising effort? “I spotted that I used to be considering method too small in regards to the energy of working.”
Case realized that the ladies she was instantly working with have been appreciative however not essentially that within the sum of money she may convey to the shelter. She says, “What they have been tremendous keen on listening to about was the working and the races and the landscapes.” She goes on to say, “A few of these ladies had grown up earlier than the Taliban had come into energy, and they also had completed sports activities earlier than and a few of the youthful ladies had by no means gotten the possibility to run outdoors. They needed to have the ability to do the working as effectively.”
Case admits that she’d arrived in Afghanistan with the preconceived notions that working wasn’t one thing individuals dwelling in a conflict zone could be significantly keen on, however she says she got here to be taught, “They’ve been dwelling by conflict for thus lengthy that, they need a full and full life like everybody else. Sure, there are bombs going off. Sure, security was a priority, however there have been generations rising up in Afghanistan by battle. And so they needed to have the ability to expertise the entire regular joys of and freedoms in life that we do.”
Stephanie Case giving starter’s orders at a race in Afghanistan, circa 2016. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Case.
In 2014, with seed cash offered by the founders of the primary ultramarathon she’d completed in Vietnam, Case launched Free to Run, a non-profit devoted to creating alternatives for girls in Afghanistan to run and develop their life and management abilities in order that they could possibly be a part of driving social change of their nation. Not like indoor sports activities, Case explains, “Operating includes this bodily act of reclaiming public house. While you see somebody working by the streets, while you see somebody working by the mountains, proudly owning that public house, in locations like Afghanistan, it may be an act of actual riot. It may be an act of protest. It may be an act of activism.” She continues, “Having ladies reclaim that public house by working can change the concepts that society has in regards to the roles that girls and ladies can play in broader society.”
This system was successful, spreading to 6 totally different international locations and serving to hundreds of girls benefit from the sport of working safely. In 2021, when the Taliban regained management of Afghanistan, this system workers needed to evacuate the nation, burn all of their data, and shut their places of work. For the reason that majority of Free to Run funding got here by the Afghanistan leg of this system, your entire group was in jeopardy. However Case was decided not solely to maintain Free to Run alive, however to maintain a toehold in Afghanistan, nevertheless not possible the duty appeared. Within the years since, she says she’s discovered that, “There are cracks on this oppressive regime the place slightly bit of sunshine can come by. There are alternatives the place we will help ladies and ladies entry sure kinds of sports activities, in a secure method.”
This system’s base has since migrated to Iraq, and the group continues to supply alternatives for girls in places the place they wouldn’t in any other case exist.
Members of Free to Run. Picture: Free to Run
Operating and Motherhood
Case left her job in Afghanistan in 2013 and launched Free to Run whereas working in South Sudan on the humanitarian response to the latest battle there. On the time, she was residing in a tent in a camp for internally displaced individuals. Afterward, she took a job in Gaza for a few years earlier than shifting to Geneva, Switzerland, after which returning again to Afghanistan with the United Nations in 2018. Her relaxation and recuperation weeks from Gaza have been spent in Afghanistan engaged on Free to Run. For Case, it was an intense interval of labor and volunteerism, and the worldwide motion amongst battle zones required by it.
Case in South Sudan in 2014.
All through all this, Case continued her personal working. In 2015, she positioned sixth within the 330-kilometer Tor des Géants within the Italian Alps. She went on to earn a second- and two fourth-place finishes within the occasion in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2021, she received the notoriously troublesome 450-kilometer Tor des Glaciers, a self-navigated improve on the 330-kilometer model.
In 2022, she completed second on the Hardrock 100. She laughs when she says, “I used to be seven hours behind Courtney [Dauwalter]. Proper on her heels. However I used to be actually proud of the way it went.”
Case on her method to profitable the 2021 Tor des Glaciers.
It wasn’t till she’d flown again to the Center East after the 2022 Hardrock 100 and purchased a bottle of bubbles to have fun her run — she’d needed to depart earlier than the awards ceremony had completed — that one thing instructed her to take a being pregnant check. It got here again constructive, and whereas Case had by no means been one to desperately need a household, she says, “It was in that prompt the place I knew that it was simply one thing I immediately needed, and needed actually, actually badly.”
When she miscarried, Case was devastated. Then individuals began asking her if she thought it may need been due to her working. In spite of everything, she’d raced the Hardrock 100 whereas within the very early phases of being pregnant. She says that whereas there’s no science to point out that working could cause a miscarriage, “Having individuals sort of plant that seed in my head began to have an effect on my relationship with working.” She explains, “All of the sudden, the factor that gave me pleasure and that took away my stress was changing into in my head one thing that had simply brought on one of the crucial horrible and largest moments of grief.”
When she bought pregnant a second time, Case reduce on her working, however miscarried once more. This time individuals prompt that her job was too worrying for a profitable being pregnant. She says, “I believed, I can’t win!” If she ran an excessive amount of, she was doing it flawed. If she didn’t run as an outlet for work stress, she was additionally doing it flawed. Case goes on to say, “I discovered it extremely troublesome. I felt like I simply misplaced my id.”
Not wanting to surrender on beginning a household, Case turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF), planning her work schedule then centered round Jerusalem, Israel, and Gaza round her cycle and flying again to Europe for embryo transfers. Surrounded by battle, Case remembers saying, “While you’re surrounded by loss of life every single day in your work, it’s very exhausting to ask your physique to make a life.” However Case believed in what she was doing, and finally an embryo switch resulted within the start of her daughter, Pepper, in November of 2024.
Case welcomed her daughter, Pepper, in November 2024.
Returning to the Hardrock 100
Case acutely understood the emotional toll exacted by fertility struggles, particularly amongst endurance athletes, and got here to appreciate that it was one thing that wanted to be talked about. She says, “I feel these fertility struggles have an effect on feminine runners in a heightened method as a result of we now have the entire questions across the relationship that working has with fertility and no good solutions. After which we now have the guilt.” Wanting to focus on, “how little info there may be, how lonely it may be, and there are lots of ladies which can be struggling, in runners and non-runners alike,” Case got down to make a second movie following her personal struggles with fertility in addition to these of different ladies.
Case having fun with the mountains throughout her being pregnant. Picture: Nathanaël Sapey-Triomphe for Dream Lens Media
She says, “I feel that there’s much more dialogue, as there ought to be in path working and ultrarunning, about the necessity to help mothers and being pregnant, and the necessity for being pregnant deferrals and clauses in athlete contracts for postpartum.” Nonetheless, she famous the disgrace and silence that also exists round how troublesome it’s for a lot of to even get to the stage of changing into pregnant within the first place.
Profiting from a being pregnant deferral from final 12 months, Case will line up for the 2025 Hardrock 100 once more, three years after the beginning of her being pregnant journey, and says the occasion would be the end result of the brand new movie. She says that whereas she initially thought a becoming finish of the story could be to have her fully bomb the race, a nod to the truth that being pregnant and motherhood is difficult and may derail coaching and one of the best of intentions, Case says that she’s discovered new motivation to present it her all, “As a brand new mother, and seeing how society treats ladies postpartum, I’ve bought an actual hearth to come back again and truly do rather well within the race.”
Pepper might be ready for her on the end line, no matter what storyline her race follows.
Trying to the Future
After this 12 months’s Hardrock 100, Case is hoping to plan some adventures nearer to house within the Alps, together with a multi-day journey with Pepper. She’ll additionally return to work in locations on the planet the place she will be able to make the most important distinction.
When requested what her hopes are for her daughter, she says, “I don’t need her to really feel like she’s in a world that’s static and sort of introduced to her. I would like it to be malleable. I would like it to be an area that she doesn’t simply transfer by, however that she influences.”
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Stephanie Case attempting to get pleasure from a slice of pizza on her method to ending second on the 2022 Hardrock 100. Picture: iRunFar/Bryon Powell