Unstoppable Super-Mom Conquers 100-Mile Challenge Four Months After Giving Birth!

Photo: Sue Sitki/ Sulphur Springs Trail Race

So what’s the scoop with all these super-fit, super moms? Earlier this month Canadian Stephanie Case won the prestigious Ultra Trail Snowdonia event, despite having to stop to breastfeed her six-month-old daughter Pepper along the way. This weekend I got to announce the finish of another incredible new mom – 43-year-old Elise Maguire didn’t win the Sulphur Springs 100 Mile Trail Run, but she did manage to finish 10th in the women’s race in a time of 24:21:44, just four months after giving birth to baby Arthur and pumping breast milk every 25 miles.

All this came just two weeks after Maguire had won the women’s division of the Conquer the Canuck 12 hour race. (After covering 87.5 km in just under 11 hours she was able to call it a day because it was clear she would win the race.)

First Ultra

When it comes to running long distances in the trails, Maguire is most definitely a natural. She did her first 50 km trail run in 2011, showing up without having done “any training,” finishing in 5:14 and taking third. (We’ll have more on her version of “no training” – bear with me.) Maguire was such a novice that it wasn’t until she had returned home and had a shower that she finally checked out the results and learned she had won an award. The amazed race director encouraged her to take up the sport more seriously.

Maguire, who is originally from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, wasn’t a complete novice on the running front. She had taken up the sport after she moved to Chicago in 2004.

Maguire competes at the Oil Creek Ultra in 2015. Photo: Courtesy Elise Maguire

“When I moved down there, I got fat really quickly,” she recalls. “That’s when I decided to start running in the morning … maybe four or five times a week. I wasn’t trying to get faster – it was like trying to stay healthy.”

By 2011 Maguire had moved back to Canada and was living in Burlington, Ontario. That first 50 km run was at Sulphur Springs, too.

“I was basically trying to make friends and meet new people because I didn’t know anyone here,” she recalls. “And that’s when I started ultra running. It was a great way for me to build up my social circle.”

Maguire might have caught the ultra running bug, but it took her a while to work her way up to a successful 100 mile race. She finished a 50 mile race, then a 100 km effort. Getting through a 100 miles of running, though, proved to be a challenge. She had three failed attempts before she finally got it done, finishing her first 100 mile race at one event in Oregon – the Pine to Palm 100 Mile Endurance Run.

“And this is when there was kind of a click in my mind that I finally made it to the finish line,” Maguire remembers. “I finally understood the distance, how to race 100 miles. And then I just started racing 100 miles pretty much every three weeks. I did 14 100 milers in two years … I was really into it, really, really into it.”

You think?

Maguire’s steady streak of races came to an abrupt halt, though, in November, 2015. During a 100 mile race in Missouri she fell and ruptured her piriformis muscle. She was told by doctors at the time that she’d never be able to run more than 5 km again. As she was trying to come back, she had another accident, “I completely blew out my ankle and I needed three reconstructive surgeries.”

After literally years of rehab it wasn’t until the pandemic that Maguire finally managed to get herself out running on the trails. Just as her confidence was starting to come back that maybe she could get back to her trail running ambitions, she got pregnant. After baby David arrived, Maguire found that a great way to get him to sleep was to take him out running in the baby jogger.

“Basically, my routine was to put him in the running stroller and then I was running 27K a day with him,” she remembers. “And then I started building my mileage again. So, during my first maternity leave, that’s when I thought that, with that mileage, I can go back to ultra running. So, I signed up for a 50 miler, and when I showed up to my first one, I won.”

“I ran my first marathon in Montreal in 2023 at 7 months postpartum after my first kid David. I did 3:37, only 2 weeks after racing the 50 miler at Haliburton.”

After another 50-mile race Maguire got pregnant again. After Arthur was born in January of this year, Maguire decided “to go big and try to go back to 100 miles,” despite not having run at all during the second pregnancy. (She did her first run just five days after delivering, though.) In preparation she did the Around the Bay Road Race (a 30 km event that is the second-oldest road race in North America after the Boston Marathon) and the Mississauga Marathon, then the 12-hour Conquer the Canuck race.

A 10-Year Journey

All of which set up her big day at the Sulphur Springs race. For Maguire taking on the 100 mile race last weekend would answer a number of questions.

“Am I going to be able to run 100 miles that quickly after having a baby?” she wondered. “But, also, am I going to be able to run 100 miles after my two big accidents? After I was told I’ll never run longer than 5 km ever in my life … My first thought was, I need to get another buckle to prove them wrong. And it took me 10 years, it took me a long time to get there, but I was able to do it this weekend.”

Photo: Sue Sitki/ Sulphur Springs Trail Race

Maguire left the boys at home with her partner, Paul Kucheruk, and set off for the race. The race directors organized a space for her in the tent to pump breast milk, and a friend who lived close buy delivered some hot soup through the night. Kucheruk was supposed to be at the finish line with the boys to celebrate her finish, but she finished a few hours quicker than anticipated, and everyone was still sleeping when she crossed the line.

Whether or not we’ll see Maguire compete in another ultra race this year, or in the near future, is up in the air. She’s signed up for a few more events, including the challenging 100 mile race in Haliburton, Ontario, in September, but she’s not certain she’s going to compete – it’s tempting to trade all that extra training time for some mom-time with the kids this summer.

“I know perfectly well that once I return to work full time as an actuary, with two kids at home, I’m not going to be able to run ultras anymore,” she said. “I’m just not going to have the luxury of time. Of course, I’ll keep running because I love it and I want to stay fit, but I’m not going to be able to do the heavy volume. Because, when you train for 100 miles, you need to do a lot of long distance. and with a full time job and two kids, I know that I’m not going to be able to do it.”

In the end, though, all that hardly matters. Last weekend Maguire proved to herself that she could run much further than 5 km. That she could, once again, finish a 100-mile race. That she could do all that just four months after delivering her second child. That’s more than impressive enough.

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