A race where you push yourself — and a stroller
By: Experience Magazine
Tags: Parenting, Running, Children, Marathon, Stroller

A race where you push yourself — and a stroller

The sport of ‘stroller running’ can be casual fun. But it can also be serious competition.

Illustration by Ben Boothman

By Jim Sullivan

It was a hot, humid late-summer day, and Julie DiNardo was preparing for a road race like many runners do, stretching and adjusting her laces. But unlike many runners, she had something else to prepare. She strapped her three toddlers into the triple stroller she would push throughout the 10-kilometer run.

She pushed them fast. That day, August 26, 2016, Julie earned a spot in Guinness World Records, setting the record for — as Guinness puts it — “Fastest 10km pushing a triple pram (female).” She ran it in 49 minutes in North Kingston, Rhode Island.

DiNardo, now 33, has been a runner since age five. She earned 12 varsity letters in high school for cross country, indoor, and outdoor track. When she was in her 20s, she ran a race or triathlon almost every weekend. But she didn’t know stroller racing was a thing until she ran across an article three years ago in Runner’s World, featuring a woman who did just that.

“Once I read that article and knew her time, I felt that I could surpass it, and I went for it,” Julie says.

Stroller running — also called pram or buggy running, depending on the country — has been around since at least the last century; you can find footage of a British “pram marathon” from 1923. Organizers of the Pagham Pram Race in West Sussex, England, date their own Monty Pythonesque event back to 1946: servicemen back from World War II having some fun, with beer stops along the way and a fruitcake for the winner. (It’s still held every Boxing Day.)

But in recent years, participation has spread, with women often taking the lead, and taking things seriously. In 2006, pram races of at least one mile took place simultaneously in seven European countries, an event organized by Mother Centres International Network for Empowerment. (The event, which drew 2,015 prams, set a Guinness World Record for “largest pram/stroller walk in multiple locations.”)

The sport is the natural extension of several trends, from a surge in interest in running to a craze in postpartum fitness. And for some runners like DiNardo, stroller racing is a way to merge the immersive experience of motherhood with the thrill of competition. For a driven athlete, stroller running can seem like a best-of-both-worlds situation: rather than change your routine when the kids arrive, why not just bring them along?

“Every race that I’ve run with my kids, there is always one of them or all of them cheering at the top of their lungs, ‘Go mama! Go mama, go!’”

DiNardo is half of a rather athletic couple. Her husband, Lenny DiNardo, played major-league baseball for parts of six years — pitching for the Boston Red Sox during the 2004 championship season — and today is an analyst at New England Sports Network, the cable channel that broadcasts most Red Sox games. Lenny, 39, is still in tip-top shape, but says Julie is the better athlete. “Oh, she is by far,” he said. “I’m not joking at all when I say that.”

Julie ran eight races in 2018, six of them with a stroller. She has set other Guinness records, too — fastest half marathon pushing a double stroller, fastest half marathon pushing a triple stroller — though her records have since been broken.

She says her kids — Abby, 6; Lenny, Jr., 4; and Audrey, 2 — love being part of the racing, and she loves “knowing that when they grow up, they’ll be able to understand they were part of the record.”

Already, they’re aware of what’s happening. “Every race that I’ve run with my kids, there is always one of them or all of them cheering at the top of their lungs, ‘Go mama! Go mama, go!’” she says. “Which can be both inspiring and exhausting to hear for 13.1 miles, but I think they feel all of the positive race energy, too. They enjoy it as much as I do.”

But with records at stake, the races are also serious business. On the days Lenny pitched in the major leagues, Julie gave him time to be solitary, quiet, introspective, or ornery. Now, Lenny says, it’s his job to support her on race days. “The morning of the race can be hectic, especially with kids,” he says. “I know that there’s a point prior to the race where she needs to be by herself. She has this routine where she applies [anti-chafing] rubs on her knees, her legs, and her hips, and she’ll go in a corner. I try to stay out of her way, and realize she’s getting mentally prepared.”