Gabi Rooker
Words by: Josh Cook
Images by: Isaiah Rustad
This article is brought to you by Run Minnesota, the oldest and largest running organization in the state, with a proud history of supporting running since 1961.
Metamorphosis
Let’s come right out with it: Gabriella Rooker’s marathon progression should shock even the hobbyist of joggers. Since her debut at Grandma’s in 2021 to her most recent race at the California International Marathon (CIM), in Sacramento, Rooker has qualified for the Olympic Trials (twice) and improved upon her personal best by nearly 26 minutes: 2:54:57; 2:34:57; 2:29:44. What’s even more impressive is this explosive transformation occurred within an 18 month span, turning her from competitive recreational athlete to rubbing elbows with the elites.
Rooker, who goes by Gabi, seems as flabbergasted as everyone else by the progression. On a cold February morning, over coffee after Mill City Running’s popular Flapjack Friday group run, she hedges about her success, shrugging into thin air and wondering aloud if perhaps it was the discipline—or the “lots and lots of plyometrics”—of her early days in gymnastics that led to her late blooming marathon success. (Rooker is 35, which is the age most elites start slowing down or thinking about retirement.)
Upside down
As a child, she spent most of her days upside down, doing back handsprings or hanging from the monkey bars on the playground. She found an outlet at Roseville Gymnastics, which had (and still has) a parks and recreation program and competitive club team. Throughout grade school and into college, Rooker trained upwards of 20 hours per week, taking part in local and national competitions. “You have to obsess with it,” she says. “The gymnastics life was all consuming. I loved it, but I also knew I didn’t want to go professional.”
Early on, the big dream was competing for a Division I college, but the bar—pun intended—was high from the get-go. Recalling a time in fifth grade, she wanted to add some variety to her schedule, so she joined the track team, but when she lost a skill in gymnastics—two backflips in a row on the high beam—her coaches told her she had to pick track or gymnastics. “You set up your [career] trajectory by 10,” she says, and she still had her eye on Division I. She worked her way up through all 10 club levels, at times even being held back by her coaches so as not to progress too quickly.
In high school, after a few broken bones, dislocations and one surgery, she switched clubs and eventually took time off during her senior year, where she found herself at the track once again. It was there that she met Alex Rooker, her future husband, and competed in the 100, 200 and 400 meters. Two flirtations, and both stuck, but not before one last dash at the balance beam dream. The Division I college tours fell flat, so she pivoted to Division III, landing at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, where she worked harder than ever, earning three individual national titles and three team national titles.
While there might not be a clear translation from gymnastics to running – “a bar routine couldn’t be more different than a marathon”— Rooker learned a lot of life lessons she carries with her to this day: “Determination and grit and problem solving and teamwork.” She also gained some lifelong friends. When asked if it was hard to walk away from it, she emphatically says no. “You know your trajectory for a while, and most people are ready to be done.”
Building Blocks
Back in the Twin Cities after college, Gabi and Alex enjoyed an active lifestyle, constantly cycling around the city and doing CrossFit two to three times per week. “Neither of us can sit still for very long,” Alex says. “We’ll put on a movie and within three minutes one of us will be foam rolling on the floor or stretching.” He tells me of a time around 2013 when he convinced Gabi to join him for a 5K run. “Around 4K, she was so upset with me. She was done, she wanted to walk home. She didn’t want to run anymore.”
Despite moments of resistance, running kept calling. In 2015 Rooker would more or less make her road racing debut at the Twin Cities 10 Mile. While finishing school to become a physician assistant, she wanted to find a personal challenge and a mental break from the intense course load. She finished in 1:10:59 (7:06/mile pace), not exactly the time of a casual runner, but rather the byproduct of a gifted athlete—of being someone who just can’t sit still.
She kept up the habit casually, but the running spark didn’t fully flame until she ran TC10 once again in 2018 (1:06:02; 6:37/mile pace), and shortly afterward found Mill City Running. She says, “I was at races and kept hearing people cheer, ‘Go, Mill City!’ and I was like, ‘I want to be on that team!’”
Around this time, Alex—whom Gabi calls “a researcher…he’s always reading the latest studies or physiology textbooks” — began coaching her. “It’s 90 percent positive,” she says, describing an incident they had recently where they had to rush one of their dogs to the emergency vet. She was in the middle of a lifting session when Alex called. “We have one car, so there wasn’t really an option. That’s where the husband/coach thing can get tricky.” But for the seemingly tricky dynamics, they’ve built a lot of trust together. Gabi is mostly happy to run the plan Alex cooks up, and they have that spousal intuition baked into the day-to-day, allowing for flexibility around Gabi’s seven days on, seven days off work schedule at the hospital. “Alex is really good at saying this is just icing on the cake,” she says. “No one cares if you blow up and run a terrible marathon. So, he’s good about keeping the perspective because I tend to get really regimented.”
The Ceiling
So, the burning question is: what is Gabi eating? Turns out, it’s miles. Lots and lots of miles. COVID restrictions were conducive to laying down a substantial base, and during her debut marathon build-up in 2021, she ran around 60 miles per week and hit 85 miles in the peak week of training. Going into 2022, in preparation for the Olympic Trials Qualifier (OTQ), she kept a consistent base with lots of weeks in the 80s and 90s and peaked with a 100 mile week. The needle just kept moving up. In preparation for CIM, Alex had her doing lots of doubles, lots of easy miles and even some twice-a-day speed workouts. (Yes, two speed workouts in one day). She peaked at 110 miles.
I lob out a few statistics: Dakotah Lindwurm won Grandma’s 2022 in 2:25:01. A 2:26:50 finish (Gabi’s stated goal for Grandma’s on June 17th) would put Rooker as the 26th fastest American woman in the marathon, just behind Molly Huddle and Aliphine Tuliamuk, sponsored athletes who, in the running world, are household names. “I feel really mixed about it,” Rooker says. “On one hand, I don’t want to compare myself to other people, and also that gulf, when times do get tighter, four minutes is a fair amount when it’s 2:29-2:25—but things are progressing well, and I don’t think I’ve found my ceiling, and I do feel like I’m getting stronger and faster, and so we keep moving the needle, and as long as mental health stays good, and as long as it’s not too much pressure.”
Rooker tends to respond to questions with the calculated practice of a diplomat—quick, sharp, to the point. It’s not that she’s uncomfortable talking about herself—she’s not squirming in her chair or wincing when asked to dive deeper into a question, but neither is she bearing all her secrets. When pressed for details about her track workouts or lifting routine, she paints in broad strokes: “RDLs (Romanian Deadlift), squats,” and “long runs, easy days easy.” That is, it’s not that she wouldn’t lay bare her training if pressed—I’m sure she would—but she doesn’t seem to see the point. The greater story, to both her and Alex, is the consistent miles.
Alex says, “If there is anything that underpins Gabi’s story, it’s the dedication day in and day out, making those smalls runs matter that don’t seem like they matter—that has been the difference maker.” That, he says, and the accumulation of miles. “That slow build has brought her to where she is.”
Team
A few photographs kept getting passed around online post-Grandma’s 2022 and post-CIM. Both photos show Rooker cheering for fellow teammates and peers – after she herself crosses the finish line. If you’ve ever run a marathon, you know that the ache of wanting to be done can last for miles, sometimes an entire hour. So, to turn right around rather than bum rush the banana stand only speaks to Rooker’s dignity and belief in the group as something of great consequence. “The front supports the back, and the back supports the front,” so goes the Mill City Running race team adage, and Rooker seems to both embody that ideal and exude it, not with great effort or strain, but by instinct. What would a gymnast be, after all, without the sideline hosannas of her teammates?
“Joining up with Mill City was a sea change,” Alex says. “I think we owe a lot of her running success to them and the community they’ve built.” It was at one of Mill City’s group runs that she met Kimberly Horner, who became a fast friend and training partner. Horner told me Gabi “has this quiet tenacity and strength in training that both builds and inspires confidence. On the track together, it can be easy to miss how hard she is working. She is unassuming as she cheers me through the end of a rep and lines up for her next one.” Horner and Rooker both qualified for the Olympic Trials together for the first time at Grandma’s 2022. Alex now coaches them both, and after a few years of mismatched training schedules, they’re now able to link up more often.
Committed
Any marathoner knows how difficult training can be, how taxing it can be on the mind, how gutting it can feel to eschew happy hours and late night hangouts in the name of the next day’s long run or workout. But Rooker doesn’t seem bothered by it. She thrives on calculation, or “regimentation,” a word that keeps coming up in both my talks with her and with Alex. Rooker says, “My mom has always called me ‘determined’ and ‘driven.’ I think those are her loving, maternal way of saying I can be quite stubborn. I do enjoy fully immersing myself in a task and sticking with it until it’s completed.”
Alexi Pappas, in her memoir Bravey, says this, “Sometimes, people will have convinced themselves that they’re committed, but in reality they’re only committed just enough to check the box ‘tried to pursue dreams’ before retreating to the safety of the backup plan…Not everyone likes it when they’re confronted with the reality of what they’ll need to do if they’re serious about their dreams. Because the truth is, most people are really just interested.”
Rooker, who was already putting in 90-mile weeks in preparation for Grandma’s back in February, seems to be positioning herself diametrically to merely “interested.” She’s committed, focused, perhaps regimented, perhaps “a little boring” (her words—work, walk the dogs, run, repeat), but also quite brave, convicted, full of what Eliud Kipchoge calls “Vitamin N”—the courage to say no, to remain disciplined and focused and until the task is complete, or until a new kind of freedom—one with wings in this case—is found.
Contributors
Isaiah Rustad is a photographer based in the Twin Cities. His work revolves around sports, live events, and anything else involving action. Running photography is a new passion of Isaiah’s. In the past year he’s photographed for Mill City Running, TC Running Company, Providence Academy Track and Field, and more. His portfolio of work can be found at isaiahrustad.com/running.
