Stephanie Case arrives on the display for this digital interview along 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 ultimately introduced her into the world. Pepper, whereas more than likely realizing on some primal degree that her mother is superb, doesn’t but know of the scope of the work Case has performed around the globe, and particularly within the Center East and Central Asia, to champion girls’s rights.
Case is presently dwelling in Chamonix, France, and hoping to increase her parental go away from her work as a United Nations human rights lawyer into the summer time, noting that she’d probably be someplace within the Center East if she weren’t on go away. Case might be greatest identified within the ultrarunning world for founding the non-profit Free to Run. With this system, which makes use of operating and management packages to help younger girls and ladies in battle areas, Case has performed what many individuals dream of: she’s turned her love for the game into one thing that advantages others.
Stephanie Case with companion John and daughter Pepper. All pictures courtesy of Stephanie Case, except in any other case famous.
Utilizing the very distinctive intersection of expertise of being a human rights lawyer, working in warfare zones, being an ultrarunner, and present as somebody who doesn’t consider within the phrase unimaginable, she’s supplied alternatives for numerous girls in six nations, together with Afghanistan and Iraq — nations the place girls 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, gained a number of awards.
Case has stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Free to Run however stays on the board and could 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 girls, to changing into a mother.
Searching for 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 operating whereas in legislation college and signed up for a marathon. From the get-go, the aim of operating was to search out her limits. “I believed the marathon was this epic, exhausting factor that you possibly can do, a ticking-the-box life occasion,” she says, “ I believed it will change my life.” She’d watch movies of girls stumbling throughout marathon end strains, fully spent, and wished to know what it will be prefer to “hit the wall and push via.”
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 “huge, epic, difficult moments.” She admits, nearly sheepishly, “I didn’t discover it that onerous.” Including distance to her racing was the subsequent logical step.
She discovered the 250-kilometer Racing the Planet: Vietnam, tried to recruit mates to race along with her, however determined to go alone when she couldn’t discover any takers. She admits there may need been just a few glasses of wine concerned within the determination to enroll. She says, “I wished to search out one thing that I wasn’t certain I’d have the ability to end.” She went on to win the ladies’s race and end third total, a consequence that made her understand, “perhaps I wasn’t a fantastic athlete in any sport earlier than that, however ultrarunning was my factor.”
She says, “I discovered that I received a lot confidence and goal out of ultrarunning that I hadn’t been in a position to get via anything.”
Stephanie Case at house within the Alps.
Within the meantime, she discovered herself working for a legislation agency in New York Metropolis in mergers and acquisitions, however she knew that it wasn’t a long-term profession. Even whereas in legislation college, she’d been fascinated with human rights. “I began doing a little work for Attorneys With out Borders on trial observations and ended up type of working for them within the subject throughout my summers all through legislation college. Liberia, Rwanda, that type of factor.” Whereas she was working for the New York legislation agency, she continued to do professional bono work, increase her human rights portfolio. When Lehman Brothers crashed and mergers and acquisitions died, her legislation agency provided a beneficiant incentive for folks to take a 12 months off. In Case’s phrases, “I mentioned, ‘Thanks very a lot.’ I took that and went and did human rights work within the U.Ok.”
In 2012, armed with a brand new Grasp of Legal guidelines in Worldwide Human Rights and Humanitarian Regulation, Case landed a volunteer place with the United Nations in Afghanistan. When requested what drew her to working in warfare zones, she says, “I had grown up via the 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 earth to be a lady. One thing simply drew me to that. It was to date exterior 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 wished to go to locations the place issues had been arguably at their worst as a result of that’s when there’s probably the most potential for optimistic change.”
She moved into an armed compound the place the longest stretch of highway was 800 meters. Folks instructed her she wouldn’t have the ability to pursue her ultrarunning anymore. However these folks didn’t understand that telling Case that she couldn’t do one thing was one of the best ways to make sure that she would.
Redefining a Relationship with Working
Working in Afghanistan was a far cry from what most ultrarunners think about splendid coaching grounds. As a substitute of operating in lovely landscapes, Case was restricted to operating laps in her armed compound. Oftentimes, the air air pollution was so unhealthy she may really feel grit in her tooth after her run, her eyes would go pink, and he or she would begin coughing after solely half-hour of operating exterior. Gone had been utilizing the very best diet and equipment, changed as a substitute 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 technique 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 had been tree roots somewhat than items of wooden or plastic.” She even discovered the optimistic 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 can be at nightfall, and the subsequent few in the dead of night. It might make the compound appear greater as a result of the scene would change.”
As a part of her time in Afghanistan, Case visited a shelter that housed girls fleeing unsafe conditions of their properties, a lot of them with kids. Case says of the ladies within the shelter, “They’d a tiny yard and a home and so they couldn’t [leave that area.] I do know that they might have given their proper arm to have the ability to run within the compound that I used to be operating 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 operating simply appeared ludicrous.”
Case in Afghanistan in 2017.
Free to Run
Case wished her operating to be greater than a egocentric pursuit. Her preliminary thought was to make use of her racing to lift cash for that Afghan girls’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 pondering method too small concerning the energy of operating.”
Case realized that the ladies she was instantly working with had been appreciative however not essentially that within the amount of cash she may convey to the shelter. She says, “What they had been tremendous fascinated with listening to about was the operating and the races and the landscapes.” She goes on to say, “A few of these girls had grown up earlier than the Taliban had come into energy, and they also had performed sports activities earlier than and a few of the youthful girls had by no means gotten the possibility to run exterior. They wished to have the ability to do the operating as nicely.”
Case admits that she’d arrived in Afghanistan with the preconceived notions that operating wasn’t one thing folks dwelling in a warfare zone can be significantly fascinated with, however she says she got here to be taught, “They’ve been dwelling via warfare for therefore 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 via battle. And so they wished 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 supplied by the founders of the primary ultramarathon she’d performed 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 expertise in order that they could possibly be a part of driving social change of their nation. In contrast to indoor sports activities, Case explains, “Working includes this bodily act of reclaiming public area. If you see somebody operating via the streets, if you see somebody operating via the mountains, proudly owning that public area, 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 girls reclaim that public area via operating can change the concepts that society has concerning the roles that ladies and ladies can play in broader society.”
This system was a hit, spreading to 6 completely different nations and serving to hundreds of girls benefit from the sport of operating 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 workplaces. Because the majority of Free to Run funding got here via the Afghanistan leg of this system, all the group was in jeopardy. However Case was decided not solely to maintain Free to Run alive, however to maintain a toehold in Afghanistan, nevertheless unimaginable the duty appeared. Within the years since, she says she’s discovered that, “There are cracks on this oppressive regime the place a bit bit of sunshine can come via. There are alternatives the place we will help girls and ladies entry sure forms of sports activities, in a protected method.”
This system’s base has since migrated to Iraq, and the group continues to offer alternatives for girls in places the place they wouldn’t in any other case exist.
Members of Free to Run. Picture: Free to Run
Working 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 current battle there. On the time, she was residing in a tent in a camp for internally displaced folks. Afterward, she took a job in Gaza for a few years earlier than transferring to Geneva, Switzerland, after which returning again to Afghanistan with the United Nations in 2018. Her relaxation and recuperation weeks from Gaza had 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 operating. 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 gained the notoriously tough 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 pleased with the way it went.”
Case on her technique to successful the 2021 Tor des Glaciers.
It wasn’t till she’d flown again to the Center East after the 2022 Hardrock 100 and acquired a bottle of bubbles to rejoice her run — she’d needed to go away earlier than the awards ceremony had completed — that one thing instructed her to take a being pregnant check. It got here again optimistic, and whereas Case had by no means been one to desperately desire a household, she says, “It was in that prompt the place I knew that it was simply one thing I all of a sudden wished, and wished actually, actually badly.”
When she miscarried, Case was devastated. Then folks began asking her if she thought it may need been due to her operating. 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 indicate that operating may cause a miscarriage, “Having folks type of plant that seed in my head began to have an effect on my relationship with operating.” She explains, “All of a sudden, the factor that gave me pleasure and that took away my stress was changing into in my head one thing that had simply triggered one of the crucial horrible and largest moments of grief.”
When she received pregnant a second time, Case reduce on her operating, however miscarried once more. This time folks prompt that her job was too irritating 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 tough. I felt like I simply misplaced my identification.”
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, “If you’re surrounded by demise day-after-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 ultimately 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 believe these fertility struggles have an effect on feminine runners in a heightened method as a result of we’ve got the entire questions across the relationship that operating has with fertility and no good solutions. After which we’ve got the guilt.” Wanting to spotlight, “how little info there’s, how lonely it may be, and there are numerous girls 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 girls.
Case having fun with the mountains throughout her being pregnant. Picture: Nathanaël Sapey-Triomphe for Dream Lens Media
She says, “I believe that there’s much more dialogue, as there needs to be in path operating 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.” Nevertheless, she famous the disgrace and silence that also exists round how tough 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 fruits of the brand new movie. She says that whereas she initially thought a becoming finish of the story can be to have her fully bomb the race, a nod to the fact that being pregnant and motherhood is tough and might derail coaching and the very best of intentions, Case says that she’s discovered new motivation to offer it her all, “As a brand new mother, and seeing how society treats girls postpartum, I’ve received an actual hearth to come back again and really do very well within the race.”
Pepper shall be ready for her on the end line, no matter what storyline her race follows.
Seeking 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 earth the place she will be able to make the largest 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 type 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 via, however that she influences.”
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Stephanie Case making an attempt to get pleasure from a slice of pizza on her technique to ending second on the 2022 Hardrock 100. Picture: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
