Interview: Gadrie Edmunds - "If it rains. It rains."
Hailey, Idaho
Gadrie Edmunds has a talent for seeing the parallels between running and life and bringing those to the fore with unique insight. She split her formative years between rural Roy, Utah – where she was “a little blonde girl tagging along” with her father on outdoor adventures – and Meridian, Idaho – where her more limited access to the outdoors eventually led, if a bit circuitously, to her current love for running.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Edmunds talks about the beauty of transcendent moments and what that means for future expectations. She shares insight on the racing mindset unexpectedly gleaned from a teenage runner on a foggy fairground one January morning in Emmett, Idaho. And she concludes with a key existential question for any runner – and any person, really: “Are you having fun out there?”
We spoke at a table just outside the doors of the Fit Works gym at the Community Campus in Hailey, Idaho, fitting in questions and answers as parents came and went, picking up their kids from the summer day camp that was just across the hall.
Hank Dart
Thanks for doing this. I’m excited to get to know a little bit more about you and you’re running. What’s one of your first running memories?
So, I was a fairly sedentary preteen, teen. I didn’t start running until, I think, my sophomore year of college, and my first run was one of those where it was kind of for mental health and kind of for getting in shape. We lived in Meridian [Idaho] on Overland Road, and it was much more rural then. It’s not like it is now. Overland was a two-lane road, and I could get to the canal and ditch bank, and you could go for a couple miles and be off road. And, so, I would do that a couple times a week – go out in the evening in the summer and fall. I just remember the first time that I completed probably two full miles; that was probably where I was hooked. I was like: “Oh, okay. I can do this. It’s fun. It’s a stress reliever.”
Where were you in college?
Boise State.
And you grew up in Meridian?
I was born in northern Utah. My family lived in Roy, Utah, until I was almost 11, and then we moved to Meridian.
We’ll come back to that. So, you hit two miles, and that was a real landmark. When did your love for running take off?
It was probably a year or so later, and it was where I would run a couple times a week, and then maybe if I was on campus, I would go for a run. But Dave [her now husband] and I signed up for the YMCA Christmas Fun Run, and I think we only did the short course that first year, which is only around 2.5 miles through the North End. And I remember just thinking, like a lot of runners do: “I’m going to be dead last, and it’s going to be so embarrassing.” Dave said: “You’re going to be fine.” And just being part of that community and that energy was really great. Then, after we were married, we lived right by Camel’s Back Park, and we could run to the park and hit all of the foothills trails back there. And that’s when my love for running really, I think, stuck.
You were an early booster for the Hailey Run Club, and you consistently come to the Thursday runs. What is it that draws you to the Club?
I made a comment to Betsie [Hailey Run Club co-founder] that first year. She’s so extroverted and outgoing, and she had seen us in the neighborhood multiple times, and had stopped [and said]: “You gotta come to run club!” And I think you had talked to Dave about it. So, I made a joke to her that first year that I’m super introverted, and need the extroverts to come and adopt me, and, say: “Come on, let’s do this!” I think that definitely was the catalyst. And I do enjoy just interacting with other runners and having that sense of a group purpose. We had done a run club with Idaho Running Company when we were in Boise, and then we did – was it Wednesday or Thursday? – our old track workouts [around 2010 in Hailey].
With Brad Mitchell?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it was a nice way to kind of get back to that, I think.
Coming back to some of your early days and how that impacted who you are today. Where would you say you grew up? Meridian or Northern Utah?
I would say a mix. I think my most formative time was in Utah. So, nobody in my family was ever an athlete in the, like, group sports kind of way. But both my parents were pretty outdoorsy, and especially my dad. So, there was a lot of just being outside in nature. It was super, super rural when I grew up. We had horses. We did trail rides and rodeo events – all that stuff. He did a lot of hunting and fishing, and he would take me – little blonde girl tagging along. So, I think that part of just being outside in nature has definitely stuck with me. And it’s interesting to think about, just the socioeconomic aspects of how people recreate, right? When we moved to Meridian, there just wasn’t the infrastructure at all. So, I think, for all of us in my family, we kind of fell out of just being active in general. And so, running was a way for me to get back into that, you know?
I guess the Wood River Valley – Hailey, Ketchum, Sun Valley – where we live now, that’s kind of a return to that immediate access that you had in your younger childhood.
Yeah, it’s definitely much easier. And when the city and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], started putting in the trails in Hailey - even just Toe of the Hill – it was such an upgrade for us. It’s nice to just be able to go out your door and go for however far you want.
Do you have a favorite distance? And if you do, is it road or trail?
I don’t think I really have a favorite distance. Earlier on, there was a time when I felt it wasn’t even worth it to race a 5K, because you have to get your gear on and drive to the race, and you’re done in 25 minutes or whatever. As I’ve gotten a little bit older, I do think it’s a challenge in its own way, right? So, each distance brings its own challenge and benefit. I would say, I enjoy probably up to half marathon. 30Ks have been okay. Marathons are kind of iffy. The longer distance, I think, is harder for me. And I’m probably unusual in the Hailey Run Club group that I actually prefer road racing. I like training on trails and just getting out. But, I don’t know, there’s something about being able to be more consistent in pacing that I like in road racing.
What’s a favorite piece of equipment? Anything that you hate to leave the door without when you go training or racing.
I’d probably say my smartwatch, right? I always have it on. That said, I’ve tried to be a little bit better about not being so tied into hitting specific numbers. I guess it comes with pros and cons.
When you come back from your run, are there a couple metrics you really like to look at?
I would say, I just look at overall numbers, like distance and pace for a time. I don’t know if I have a leg length discrepancy or what, but I did have an old injury. I was off balance. I spent more time on the right leg, and so I had one of the running dynamics foot pods from Garmin. So, I used to check that a lot, and through some rehab exercises, I was able to get that balanced out pretty well. So that was helpful for a period of time.
Do you have a running-related moment that will pop up to you regularly? Something that is just on a loop sometimes that you think back on, whether it’s a memory from running or feeling from running, a sensation that comes back. I don’t know if everyone has this, but I thought I would ask.
There’s one race – the Payette Lakes Run in McCall [Idaho]. The 30K. We’ve done it a couple times. It’s Labor Day weekend, and for whatever reason, every time I’ve done it, it’s just been transcendent. And I don’t know why, and I’m actually afraid to sign up again, because I’m afraid it will ruin it, right? How often do you have a race that everything just feels like it’s clicking the entire time? So, I do think of that sensation a lot. Yeah. And, you know, you can catch that every now and then. You can catch segments of it on a training run or another race, but probably not. It hasn’t been predictable for me, really.
So, I don’t think I’m misremembering. There was a year when you and your husband, Dave, did at least one race every month.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Can you say a little bit about what the impetus was for that, and if you have any highlights, or lowlights, which may be even more interesting?
I don’t recall why we decided to do it. I may have read something in Runner’s World. But, I think for us, the fun part was it literally didn’t matter the distance. So, I think we did a couple half marathons that year, and then everything else, we just kind of filled in 5Ks and 10Ks where we could. I’m trying to think when that even was. I think it was pre-2010. At that time, there weren’t a ton of races in Idaho. So, that was part of the challenge, and the fun of it was figuring out where you’re going to go every month. And so sometimes you’re ending up in these dinky, dinky little towns, but you got to be a tourist in your own state, and sign up and do that.
One of the things that sticks with me, was actually the very first one that we did in January. We did the Freezeout Challenge in Emmett, where you go up the old Freezeout Hill. As you drive into Emmett, you come down a pretty big hill, and they’ve updated the highway, I don’t know, within the last 20 years. But, they still have the old grade, and so you’re running up the old road to the summit and then turn around and run back to the fairgrounds. It was end of January, so it was kind of like freezing fog, kind of rainy, drizzly, and we’re standing there in the fairground building, waiting for the start. And it’s cold, and there are these two, like, preteen, early teenage boys standing next to us. And this one kid – he’s so worried – he says something like: “Oh, my God, what are we gonna do? Look, it’s raining out that way!” He’s looking out to the west. He’s like: “What are we going to do if it rains?” Oh, my God, he’s freaking out. And his friend just looks at him, and it’s just in the most laconic voice, is kind of like: “If it rains, it rains. It’s not our fault.” And Dave and I just kind of lost it. But what a great philosophy for racing and life, right? I’ve prepared as much as I can. And it’s not my fault if it rains. I love it.
That should be the Run Club motto.
I know. Dave and I still sometimes say that to each other.
“If it rains, it rains. It’s not our fault.”
Anything else that comes to mind that we haven’t covered? About running and life…or it raining or not?
I mean, I think the one thing that I try to keep in mind, and I’ve heard it from multiple people, but it came up in the running camp that we did with the Roches [Coaches Megan and David Roche of Some Work, All Play]: It just doesn’t matter. People take it so seriously, right? So, whatever your internal motivation is, is great. But in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter. If you miss a training run, or where you finish a race, or whatever. It’s: “Are you having a good time out there?”
Well, Gadrie, thank you very much. This was awesome.
Yeah, happy to do it. Thank you. Thanks for your time.
