Reigning U.S. Mountain Running Champion Anna Gibson is lining up for the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace and is racing both the Ascent and the 23k this weekend, events where she placed second in 2023. In her first interview with iRunFar, Gibson talks about her path into trail running, how she views her current upward trajectory in the sport, and how growing up in the mountains in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has led to her being a multisport athlete.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth Ascent and 23k previews and follow our live race coverage of the Ascent on Friday and the 23k on Sunday.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Anna Gibson Pre-2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Anna Gibson. It’s a couple of days before the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent and 23k. Hey, Anna. How are you doing?
Anna Gibson: I’m great. Thank you.
iRunFar: Good. We’re all in Truckee, California. It’s a couple days to the race. You’ve been here a couple times before. How does it feel coming back to Broken Arrow?
Gibson: Oh, I love it. I’m so excited. This has been my favorite week of the last two years of my running career, so I’m super happy to be back.
iRunFar: Well, I’d love to know what makes this race so cool, why it’s your favorite.
Gibson: I mean, I don’t know. I think that my favorite part about it is just the culture around it. I think it’s just put on by really great people, awesome competition. I think it’s just becoming the premier sub-ultra race in the U.S. and becoming really internationally competitive as well, so it’s super fun.
iRunFar: That’s awesome. This is our first interview with you, Anna. I’d love to learn a little bit more about you. We talked off-camera. You come from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Big mountains, big wilderness. And I think you have a background in collegiate running as well as some downhill ski racing.
Gibson: Yes.
iRunFar: Tell us a little bit about yourself. That’s a lot of stuff right there.
Gibson: Yeah. So I grew up in Jackson, and I actually kind of moved away a couple of times, but recently moved back there.
iRunFar: You try to leave and keep ending up back?
Gibson: Yes. I keep ending up back there. It’s just hard to find somewhere that beats it, and I’ve got such a deep community there, so I haven’t found that anywhere else. I’m sure I could make it, but I just keep feeling pulled back to this place I resonate with a lot. But, yeah, I grew up doing lots of different types of ski racing. I downhill raced for most of my childhood and then switched over to Nordic, and then raced all the way through high school.
iRunFar: Oh wow. Okay.
Gibson: And considered skiing in college as well and then had fallen really in love with running and just wanted to follow that. But, yeah. Still do lots of skiing, touring, in the winters, and then have recently kind of more recently, the last five years or so, fallen in love with biking as well.
iRunFar: Okay.
Gibson: And I’m starting to gravel race a little bit this year, which I’m really excited about. So, yeah, very multi-sport.
iRunFar: I was going to say what I’m sensing from you is a commitment to diversity and lots of disciplines.
Gibson: Yes.
iRunFar: Talk to me about growing up in Jackson Hole. You’re at the edge of the Yellowstone ecosystem there. It’s big mountains, really technical mountains to climb if you want to. Talk about that as your home base as a youth.
Gibson: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, it was amazing. I feel so fortunate to have grown up there, and still have my family there. It’s just an amazing place to recreate, and I think that’s kind of how sports started for me. It wasn’t about competition. It was just like, this is just what we do as a family. We go out, we kayak, we ride bikes, we go hiking. Then I just got into running and it was just this way to explore further and faster and I just completely fell in love with it. But was surrounded by this community full of people who, everyone’s just challenging themselves all the time and doing all the different sports, and it changes so much from season to season. So I think multi-sport was just how it was before competition even entered the picture.
iRunFar: I feel like maybe Jackson is one of those places where the moniker of everyone’s an Olympian. Like, everyone’s a really high-level athlete in whatever sport they’re in.
Gibson: Totally.
iRunFar: There’s just really amazing athletes everywhere.
Gibson: Yeah. Even, like, the normal person is really athletic.
iRunFar: Way above average.
Gibson: Does multiple activities every single day.
iRunFar: That’s amazing. Talk to me about your trail running. It’s 2025. It looks like this is your fifth season of trail running. Have I gotten that right?
Gibson: Yeah. I mean, I would say fifth season really competing. All throughout middle school and high school while I was starting to run cross country and track and getting more serious, I was always kind of trail racing in the summers. We’ve got a couple of really cool local races. There’s two hill climbs and then one kind of cool point-to-point race that goes up and over this little divide.
iRunFar: And you were doing this when you were young?
Gibson: Yeah. I started doing them, I mean my whole cross-country team in high school did them, and they’re still doing it. The kids are all still out there. I mean, it just kind of was a part of running for me, it always was. My high school was right next to this set of trails from downtown Jackson, so we’d warm up on the trails, go do a track workout, cool down on the trails again. And so it was kind of just always one and the same. So I’ve been sort of competing in trail for a lot longer than five years, but started traveling and racing more recently.
iRunFar: This is really in your blood, isn’t it?
Gibson: It is. Yeah.
iRunFar: When I look at your results in trail running, I mean, it feels like you’ve just been sort of ascending through the ranks as the years have gone on. I’m guessing as you grow more experienced with how these races sort of unfold and work. But it also looks like maybe last year, you took a really big step forward in terms of your performance. You were top ten at Sierre-Zinal, which is probably the world’s most competitive sub-ultra distance race. When you look at your career thus far, what do you see?
Gibson: I mean, I think last year was pretty pivotal for me. I feel like I’ve just been on this upward trend for a few years now, which is always really satisfying when you’re putting in the work and you’re training, and no major hiccups and kind of just, everything’s piecing together. Like, gaining experience, gaining fitness, and just getting better. It’s really satisfying.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Gibson: Last year, it was my first year really full on in trail. I competed in track and then switched over in July.
iRunFar: Oh, okay.
Gibson: Actually, I raced Broken Arrow VK last year and then went straight to the Olympic Trials and raced the 1500 there.
iRunFar: I didn’t know that. That’s awesome.
Gibson: The year before that, I had literally just come out of the NCAA. I finished my NCAA career, and I competed in trail in the summer, but was definitely not quite in the type of fitness that I was able to build when I was more focused.
iRunFar: You needed to for the trails.
Gibson: Yeah. Yeah.
iRunFar: Wow. So, from the outside looking in, it looks like it was a big step up for you, but from the inside looking out, the same thing?
Gibson: I think so. Yeah.
iRunFar: A couple weekends ago, you won the U.S. Mountain Running Championships. That’s pretty exciting.
Gibson: Thank you. Yeah.
iRunFar: How did that feel? You won a national class race. You qualified for the team to go to Worlds.
Gibson: Mm hmm.
iRunFar: And represent Team USA at the World Mountain Running Championships in September. That is another step up in your career.
Gibson: Yeah. I mean, I think so, too, which is really exciting. I mean, it’s already been such a fun year. I raced Gorge Waterfalls, Zegama, and then the U.S. Championship, and all of them went great. So it’s definitely exciting. The year’s off to a good start, already a level up from where I was last year. And I didn’t compete in track this spring for the first time ever, so I was able to actually build more volume and really focus on trail, which felt like a really big opportunity. And just like, alright. let’s see what happens when I run more and I’m on trails all winter long. And just doing a totally different style of training than I’ve ever done.
iRunFar: Staying focused on the trail-specific stuff as opposed to, like, track specifically.
Gibson: Yeah. And kind of just taking a step back from intensity almost. The track, it’s like, two really structured workouts a week, a very focused long run. And trail, it’s just so much more free flowing, and it’s more about the volume. And I spend way more time biking and doing other stuff that kind of, it works for trail, but track, you have to have more specificity, I think.
iRunFar: Yeah. And like, on the trails, you can pump it up and work hard, work with the terrain to do that rather than have it the structured, like, must do these many minutes on, or this many seconds on the track.
Gibson: Totally. Yeah.
iRunFar: Broken Arrow races, you’re not an underdog here anymore. You’ve been here a couple of times. You’ve had success both of your prior times here. Now I would say you have a target on your back with the other girls that you’re racing. How does it feel to come here as a dominating presence in the Broken Arrow scene?
Gibson: I mean, it’s exciting. It’s just cool to return to an event where I remember being here two years ago, and nobody knew who I was in the trail world at all. And I know there will be women here that are in that place this year, where it’s like, you know, if I’m doing anything to inspire them or motivate them, it’s like, this race can really turn you into something. It can be a pivotal moment in your career. I mean, I was here before I was sponsored and kind of made a name for myself. And, yeah, I think it’s just exciting to come back and honestly, it doesn’t feel like pressure. It’s just really exciting and fun.
iRunFar: That’s cool. I love that. Best of luck to you this weekend at the Ascent and in the 23k, and best of luck in qualifying for your second World’s team at the Uphill.
Gibson: Thank you. Thank you so much.
