Goat farming Jewish marathoner plows through Pittsburgh
'Keep working hard, dream big, set big goals, and just keep going after it'
In a move cementing Will Loevner’s place within Pittsburgh Marathon lore, the goat farming, agriculturally-minded, Jewish runner, outkicked Olympian Jared Ward. With 350 meters to go in a 26.2 mile race, Loevner rattled off 200 meters in about 29 seconds.
That sprint, Ward told his 26,300 Instagram followers, “really marked the end of the racing.”
Throughout the morning of May 3, Loevner, Ward and Milton Rotich seemed equally capable of victory. Over those final steps, however, with 5,023 marathoners behind him, Loevner, 28, charged down Smithfield Street.
For nearly two hours beforehand, Loevner traversed five bridges and 14 neighborhoods. The route took the Winchester Thurston graduate past his old school and training grounds, along roads filled with friends and family cheering his every step. Propelled by carbon-fiber plated footwear, Loevner methodically moved toward the finish and his wife, Emma, and infant son, Finn. He turned onto the Boulevard of the Allies. Ward, the 2015 U.S. Marathon champion, was seconds behind.
“Let’s hear it for him Pittsburgh!” blasted from a speaker.
As Loevner neared the end, he raised his arms, passed under an official clock and broke the DICK’S emblazoned tape. His blistering pace of 5 minutes and 9 seconds per mile — totaling 2:14:52 — ceased. Visibly emotional, Loevner stopped his watch, and while draped in an American flag, the self-described “Pittsburgh dad” embraced Emma and Finn. Loevner turned back toward Ward, who was standing, arms raised, clapping for the champion.
Marathoning, like any sport, features competition. But those who’ve run the distance know the race is always against themselves. Loevner — a family-focused farm manager, whose running story begins more than a decade ago — described that balance when speaking with the Chronicle from his home in Indiana Township.
School-age steps
Loevner started running as a Winchester middle schooler. Back then, as depicted in a 2010 photo in the Chronicle announcing his bar mitzvah at Adat Shalom, he was a shaggy-haired, smiling kid.
Running was something “I just fell in love with,” he said. The purple cloaked cross-country team consisted of a lot of friends and a “great coach — Coach [Bruce] Frey — and we just had lots of fun.”
Given its recent PIAA Class A state championships, Winchester, an independent coeducational preparatory school, is a cross-country force; when Loevner first started running there, however, goals were different.
“We were always like, ‘Well, we’re not the fastest, but we have the most fun,’” he said.
Loevner raced through middle school. As he grew older, he and his teammates evolved. New athletes joined, and in high school a similar mindset remained.
“We still have the most fun,” Loevner said. During his junior year, things “culminated,” and the boys’ cross-country team won a state title. “That was pretty exciting, because at Winchester, we weren’t really known for our athletics.”
Perhaps not, but others noticed. Around the time of his high school graduation, Loevner was recognized by the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame with a Nathan H. Kaufman Award for athletic and scholastic achievement. The Penn State University-bound student-athlete also received the 2016 Paul Bloom Memorial Scholarship to support his future.
At college, off trails
Penn State has a storied running tradition. Its men’s cross-country teams won NCAA national titles in 1942, 1947 and 1950. Since then, dozens of Nittany Lions have become All-Americans. Loevner arrived at the university eager to establish himself.
“I had big dreams there, but I just didn’t really accomplish all the goals that I wanted to,” he said. “I got kind of discouraged.”
Following his sophomore season, Loevner stopped running cross-country and track. When he wasn’t thinking about agriculture, he focused on nearby trails. Home to Rothrock State Forest, the area boasted ridgetop runs, rugged terrain and near endless miles for mountain biking.
Life atop a saddle represented a “new frontier,” and results were quickly noticeable, he said. “I could progress really fast week to week.”
Unlike running, where years of work shave seconds, mountain biking “was this new thing where I was learning so much,” he continued. “I was able to set my goals really big. There was nothing, nobody, telling me no. There was nothing holding me back.”
Loevner entered “Month of Mud,” a Pittsburgh-based mountain biking race, and won. From there, he went bigger. Loevner covered 300 miles at State College during a 32-hour ride. He entered Unbound XL 350, one of the largest gravel races in the word, placed second and gained perspective at the self-supported race.
Near the 200-mile mark, Loevner crashed at night. A gas station attendant, working the graveyard shift, bandaged his arm with duct tape. With 150 miles to go, Loevner remounted, and though unable to use his hand — it was broken — kept riding.
Finishing Unbound spurred a realization, he said. “I was like, wow, I guess I’m capable of a lot more than I might have thought.”
Loevner raced again in Finale Ligure, Italy, at the 24 Hour Mountain Bike World Championships. After placing third, he followed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and spent 40 days with a friend riding from Banff, Canada, through the Rockies and on to Mexico.
“We ended up getting giardia at the end of the trip because we drank some bad water in the desert,” Loevner said.
The intestinal parasite wreaked havoc, and while recovering Loevner considered future goals. Five years had passed since his last run and though he thought that journey was over he registered for Tussey Mountainback, a 50K race. Loevner spent two weeks training. He finished first.
Scant preparation left him injured but with plenty of time to keep thinking. Loevner, then age 25, realized he still possessed significant speed and strength. He contacted his former high school coach and asked, “What do you think I should do next?”
His coach said to try a marathon. Loevner agreed, trained and competed at Cleveland in 2023. He won.
Finishing about 90 seconds short of the 2:18:00 Olympic Trials qualifying time, Loevner committed to getting faster. Months later in Philadelphia, Loevner punched his ticket with a 2:16:52. The Olympic trials were less than three months away. He prepared for the race and flew to Orlando.
“It was like 80 degrees and sunny, and I was used to training in the Pittsburgh winter,” he said. “I kind of melted, but it was a really cool experience.”
With merely a year of marathoning under his belt, Loevner had already won a race, improved his times and competed for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. The period proved instructive and Loevner looked ahead to the 2024 Pittsburgh Marathon. He trained and finished second. He returned to Cleveland two weeks later, won, and after crossing the finish line, dropped to one knee and proposed to Emma. Months later, Loevner won the 2024 Philadelphia Marathon, running 2:16:12. That winter, Emma gave birth to Finn.
“Being a father, it’s just put everything into perspective,” Loevner said. “There’s definitely a lot more important things than racing in my life.”
In conversation, Loevner often mentions family. He knows the toll running takes on those he loves. As difficult as it is completing 26.2 miles, “these marathons are really hard for my wife too,” he said. “She’s the one standing there not knowing what’s happening — she’s just getting updates every five miles — and she doesn’t really know how I’m feeling. It’s all out of her control.”
New season, new perspective
Months after entering parenthood, Loevner lined up for the 2025 Pittsburgh Marathon. With wins in Philadelphia and Cleveland, and a second place finish at Pittsburgh one year prior, he seemed poised to win his hometown race. Loevner crossed the halfway mark at 1:08:26. About seven miles later, however, his pace dipped from 5:16 to 5:23. He finished fifth, running 2:22:22.
“The race just didn’t go how I wanted to,” he said. “I was very disappointed, but it really just made me want it even more.”
Loevner spent the summer and fall training. In December 2025, he traveled to Sacramento and posted a personal best of 2:12:59 at the California International Marathon.
“That gave me some more confidence and led me into a really good training block this spring,” he said.
Practice and belief culminated on May 3. Surrounded by competitors, friends and family, Loevner ran the Pittsburgh Marathon again. After finishing second in 2024 and fifth in 2025, Loevner simply wanted to win. When it finally happened, the best part, he said, was “just crossing the finish line and seeing my wife and son there, and giving them a big hug.”
Goats and greats
On the morning of May 4, Loevner was back at Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy, his family’s 130-acre farm in Indiana Township. As farm manager, Loevner knows the grind: Nearly 100 goats require daily milking; about 3,000 pounds of milk are made into cheese each day.
“There’s no stopping,” Loevner said.
Runners are masters of appreciating pace. Keeping up with family, farm-life and training, requires unparalleled discipline and expertise.
“It’s a lot of time, and a lot of time I’m very tired,” he said before praising his family. He called Emma the “most supportive person,” and said post-Pittsburgh he’s looking forward to traveling to Ottawa, Canada, racing there, and having a vacation with Emma and Finn.
Podiums and pews
After Loevner won Pittsburgh, Rabbi Yair Lehrer’s phone buzzed. A friend asked if it was the same Loevner who Lehrer had given bar mitzvah tutoring to 15 years ago.
Adat Shalom’s rabbi told the Chronicle he happily confirmed.
“Will is a serious-minded person who cares a lot about who he is,” Lehrer said. “We’re so proud of him.”
Since winning, Loevner’s days haven’t relented. There’s running, races, parenting, work. His calendar includes something else, too, he said. “We go to Tot Shabbat at Adat Shalom. We try to make it to a good bit of those.”
Including his siblings’ kids, five Loevner grandchildren — all under 5 years old — attend the monthly Friday night family-oriented program.
“That’s where we always would go to temple, so it’s fun just seeing the next generation going there,” he said.
With sights set ahead, the goat farming Jewish runner knows he’s reached this point because of the roads he’s covered. Years have passed since he attended Sunday school at Adat Shalom. It’s been a decade since he and his teammates won a state title. The lore of Loevner will captivate runners, but he hopes his message reaches beyond those who wear a bib.
“Keep working hard, dream big, set big goals, and just keep going after it,” he said. “I think with me, like there was no Pittsburgh man who has ever won the Pittsburgh marathon, and definitely I don’t think a Jewish guy in Pittsburgh has won it. So even if your goal is something that somebody hasn’t done before — and it’s a different goal than everybody else has — if it’s really what motivates you, and you’re excited about it, just work hard every day. And even if you fail a couple times, as long as you just keep coming back, you can accomplish it.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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