Amish Mother Of Seven Completes 50-Mile Ultra-Marathon

Lancaster County mother of seven Sadie Stoltzfus might fit the mold of “typical Amish mom” in many ways – but in at least one, she stands out.

That’s because she has a real love of running. This has led her to do some remarkable things – including recently completing a 50-mile “UltraChallenge” race. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

When an Amish mother of seven with a penchant for running heard about the 37-mile Rachel Carson Challenge, she showed up to hike to honor her child Rachel, whom she lost in 2012 to a rare genetic disease.

Sadie Stoltzfus, 41, of Lancaster and her 15-year son Monroe completed the Carson Challenge and were invited by a board member of the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy to its second annual trail endurance event – the 50-mile Baker Trail UltraChallenge from Gilpin, Armstrong County, to Smicksburg, Indiana County.

Mother and son finished the Ultra on Saturday with smiles on their faces.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to explore more of God‘s beautiful world,” Stoltzfus said days before the race. “Let us run with joy in the race before us.”

I love how she put that – “Let us run with joy in the race before us.” Words fit for a running race – and maybe not only that.

Sadie also had this to say afterwards: “It was a great day with so many nice people on the course who made the miles fly by.”

And the proof was in the pudding as Sadie came in at #33 out of 92 who managed to finish the race, with a time of 11:45:32. Bravo!

She was one of a large number of female participants, but the only Amish woman as far as I can tell.

How Sadie started running

So if you’re wondering how an Amish mother gets involved in this, Sadie explains more in the article how it all came about.

“As an Amish mother of seven, running is unusual in our community,” said Stoltzfus, who ran the race for the first time this year.

After she and her husband Roman lost their fourth child, a friend suggested taking up running to deal with the grief.

“I loved running as a teenager, so I didn’t need a lot of encouragement,” she said in a letter to the Post-Gazette.

Plus, Stoltzfus, her husband and their seven children are outdoorsy and love to camp.

She started running, and completed a half-marathon.

Sadie and family saw the first race as a chance to honor their lost daughter and sister:

When she heard about the Rachel Carson Challenge this summer, she noted that it featured the name of her child. She and her husband and 15-year-old son decided to honor Rachel’s memory by participating in the event in June.

While Roman could not attend, Stoltzfus and Monroe completed the grueling 37-mile challenge.

Their spirit — and the fact that they wore traditional Amish clothing — caught the attention of Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy and led to the invitation to try the 50-mile UltraChallenge two months later.

Sadie’s son Monroe joined her from the 32nd mile to the finish of the UltraChallenge

I can’t even imagine finishing a full grueling conventional marathon distance (26.2 miles), then doing another six…then having 18 more to go.

So that must have been a nice boost for mom to have son along in that final tougher stretch of the run. And, sounds like she would agree:

Competing both events this summer is a reminder that “you can do hard things,” she said.

Stoltzfus likes trail events and running in general because of “the way it makes you feel and it just helps bring life into perspective. Running with my children is a huge plus.”

What a neat story. Not something you’re going to see a ton of with the Amish – especially Amish moms – but there are a fair number of running enthusiasts in some Amish circles (more likely seen with younger folks of course).

And Sadie being from Lancaster County doesn’t surprise me – for a couple of reasons.

One would be “progressive trends” in that community, for lack of a better term. Another would be that Lancaster County’s Amish already have something of a substantial track record, no pun intended, with race running.

We’ve been seeing examples of it for years now, including Amish runners in the Bird-in-Hand Half-Marathon, or this story of Amish 22-year-old Leroy Stoltzfus running a full marathon in three hours.

Now, I don’t expect to see Amish moms running races to become anything close to a common thing.

But, maybe these sorts of “outside the mold” stories – of Amish people doing less-conventional activities in public ways (like this one) – are going to become a little less unusual, especially in communities like Sadie’s. It’s another reminder that there are different ways of being Amish.

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