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Living the Life Continued...
'I Might Like This Running
Thing'
One day, Taylor said he could beat Edwards
in a one-mile run on a local high school track. "I don't think
so," she smiled. He had spent a pretty grim year in the jungle
as a forward observer. She had played a little intramural basketball
in college. They made a casual bet. "He led by a lot that first
lap, lesson the second lap, the third lap I caught him and the
fourth he had to walk. Afterwards, I thought, 'I might like
this running thing.'" Three years after Frank Shorter won marathon
gold in Munich, the running boom was in full swing. Edwards
entered Bay to Breakers and then a 10-miler, then a half-marathon,
then a 20-miler and soon thereafter a marathon where she went
out at a 7-minute-mile pace and blew up in the last 10k.
Meanwhile, Edwards was teaching physical education at a local
junior high, then, with her Berkeley degrees, caught on with
the athletic department of a junior college. But frustrated
by an administrator who didn't want to enforce the then-new
Title IX, she found herself on the crux of another big life
change.
She and high school friend Elizabeth Jansen borrowed $20,000
to buy a dilapidated Victorian house in a poor section of Sacramento
and founded the running shoe and sportswear company, Fleet Feet.
"We were both school teachers and had no business experience,"
said Edwards. No women they knew of ran athletic shoe stores,
and certainly not what would become a fast-growing chain. "None
of the popular shoes of the time would sell to us," says Edwards.
"Luckily, Nike was just getting started. And we had the courage
that comes from not knowing what a scary situation we were in."
They painted a truck yellow, put a Fleet Feet sign on it and
drove to high schools to offer coaches their wares- football
cleats, track spikes and basketball sneakers in addition to
running shoes.
One lasting memory: "When we made it, I went to Elizabeth's
father and said, 'The name of your company is Jansen and Sons,
but your daughter has all the business brains.' The thing is,
once people didn't notice racial discrimination, the gender
discrimination and finally age discrimination. Now, fat people
are the last acceptable victims of discrimination- but I'm working
on that."
Now fully immersed in the runner's lifestyle, Edwards starting
sponsoring races and winning. She did her first marathon in
1976, her first 50-miler in 1977, won her first 5-miler around
Lake Tahoe in 1978 and finished her first Western States 100
in 1979.
Armed with her ultra running endurance, Edwards took up the
challenge of the Ironman with gusto, finishing second in 1981
not long after placing third at Western States in a PR of 20:07-
an amazing double.
Spurred on by a challenge from an audience member at a lecture
she gave on the second-class status of women in sport, she decided
to write a triathlon training book of her own. She called it
Triathlon: A Triple Fitness Sport. "At first I said, 'No, I
can't write.' But when I thought, 'Why not create a social change
through the written word?'" Unable to get an established publisher,
she wrote, printed and distributed it herself, selling 8,000
copies on her own. Then the publishers came knocking- and 50,000
copies sold to the fast-growing triathlon market. And she's
still writing: Edwards's upcoming book, Heart Zones Cycling:
The avid Cyclist's Guide to Riding Faster and Farther, will
be available from VeloPress this May.
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