Beatie Deutsch is a powerhouse.
A frum immigrant from New Jersey, Deutsch discovered her passion for running at age 26, and then defied all odds.
Picture this: Seven months pregnant, she conquered the Tel Aviv Marathon. Just after welcoming her fifth child into the world, she claimed victory in the Jerusalem Marathon, earning the title of the fastest Israeli woman – a title she still holds.
Her resilience, strength, and determination portray sheer inspiration that leaves people like us – motivated folk who love to exercise – in awe.
We caught up with the petite, attractive, tzanua-workout-clothes-clad Deutsch – naturally, over healthy salads with protein– at grocery-cum-tiny-in-store-café Zmora Organi in Talpiot, less than two weeks before the Jerusalem Marathon on March 8. She says she’ll be in London for a motivational lecture that weekend and is disappointed to miss it. But her children – aged 14, 13, 11, nine, and six – and her husband are expected to take part.
“There’s a debate about what everyone’s doing because my husband will probably run the 5K, and we’re debating if my six-year-old could do it; I think she could,” Deutsch says. “My oldest daughter and son are doing the 10K; they did it last year, so they’re fine.
“Then there’s my second daughter. I think she should do the 5K because the 10K was a lot for her last year, but…”
Deutsch, now 34, is a Jerusalemite who lives with her family in a small moshav in the picturesque Ella Valley, just outside Beit Shemesh. They moved there to have more open space. At first, she missed her morning run from her Har Nof home to the Old City via Mesilla Park, “but it does not compare for one second to the run in nature.”
Her daily workout time isn’t fixed. In the winter, she begins around 8:15 a.m. after dropping off her kids. Other days, especially when cross-training, she kicks off around 6 a.m.
Deutsch’s running career started accidentally; she just wanted to be someone who exercised consistently after giving birth to her third child. She credits her husband, then a cycling enthusiast, with encouraging her.
“I knew nothing about running,” Deutsch admits. “I signed up for a marathon purely because I knew a marathon would force me to commit to training. The first year, I ran Tel Aviv in 3:27, which is a pretty good time for your first marathon.
“When I ran that marathon, it was such an eye-opening, empowering moment,” she continues. But it wasn’t until she tackled the race again in 2017, with her pregnant belly, that the running community started to take notice.
“People were like, ‘If she could do it, we could do it,’” Deutsch says with a smile.
Then she decided she wanted to win Jerusalem. We’re peppering her with questions so fast she barely has time for her greens with quinoa.
Two months before the race, she tells us, she returned from a long run and felt depleted. A blood test revealed she had celiac and her iron level was dangerously low. But Deutsch was not deterred. She got an iron infusion and cut out all gluten from her diet. That year, she took the title of fastest Israeli woman to run the Jerusalem Marathon with a 3:09 race.
Yet, more important to her than winning was what the title gave her: a platform to raise money for Beit Daniella, named for her husband’s cousin Daniella Pardes, who committed suicide at age 14 after a struggle with anorexia. The center offers alternative therapies to these teens, such as dog and horse therapy. Deutsch raises money for it every year.
“That’s what I’m really passionate about.”
SHE CONSIDERS herself not only a professional runner but a motivational speaker. Ever since she was a teenager, “my dream was to share Judaism with the world and connect others to this gift I have.
“If I go to a Shabbaton and stand up and speak, all the guys listen to me because I am not a rabbi; I’m a runner,” she explains. “One of the things that my whole journey highlighted for me is that we have so much more strength inside of us and potential than we even realize, and who knows how many doors we’ve closed ourselves off from because we didn’t ever give ourselves a chance or we were too scared to try.
“I can’t imagine how I went six years without taking care of myself, without exercising,” Deutsch shares. “Running is like breathing for me; I cannot survive without it. And I didn’t realize how badly I needed it.”
But she notes that since becoming a professional runner, some of the joy has been lost. In that first run, there were no expectations, she remembers nostalgically. Now it’s different because she knows what she is capable of, and there’s a lot of pressure in every race.
Deutsch also focuses on the food she consumes because “I know my ideal race weight, and I’m constantly thinking about it; I never used to, so that part is hard… When you’re lighter, you’re faster; you can’t deny it. But you also cannot get unhealthily thin because that’s also gonna affect your performance.”
Moreover, if you are a type-A personality like Deutsch who wants to check off all the boxes, then food just doesn’t fit that category.
But she says she tries to keep her standards realistic; at home, she has a balanced approach to nutrition for her children. “I don’t want them to feel in any way restricted,” Deutsch says.
Has life changed for Deutsch since Oct. 7? She says she supported reservists’ wives in her area with weekly dinners for the first few months of the war. She’s still doing it, though less frequently. “Thanks to my platform, I was able to raise a lot of money for that.”
Deutsch had been focused on running in the Summer Olympics in Paris this year, but a tendon injury and other circumstances have kept her out of the race. “Now I have to choose a new dream,” she says.
“I have to make peace with the fact that sometimes there’s something really valuable in just the pursuit of chasing a huge goal and dream, even if you never make it,” Deutsch states. “For a long time, I was so fixated on the outcome and getting that time [to qualify for Paris]. I have reminded myself that, first of all, I’m more than just a runner – there’s a lot more that I stand for, and people learn from me, and I have value.
“[There’s] something inspiring about just choosing to dream big and going after that dream, even if you don’t know you’ll make it or even if you never make it.”■
Beatie’s tips for race success
- The race is a celebration. You worked hard to get there, so appreciate it.
- Start slowly.
- Kick it those last 400 meters.
- Recover with protein and carbohydrates right after your run.
Beatie’s recommended books & podcasts
- Podcasts: Ritual Podcast. Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais. Living with Emunah with Rabbi Efrem Goldberg
- Book: Deena Kaster’s Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory.