Despite straining a calf muscle a week ago, Gibbs still made the journey south to contest the masters women's 5000m and senior women's 10,000m at Saturday's national road championships around Forsyth Barr Stadium.
Gibbs blitzed all opposition in the combined masters and junior women's field, clocking an impressive 17min 17sec.
Three hours later, she contested the senior women's 10,000m to finish third in 35min 19sec.
Gibbs is only in her fifth year of running competitively and was reflective at the weekend of what might have been all those years ago.
The gateway to unleashing her running talent came about through the New Zealand Masters Games in 2009, when she wanted to add on something different from her swimming.
Realising running was something she could do, she decided to step it up a little and entered the track and road sections of the World Masters Games in Sydney later that year, winning gold in the 800m, 1500m, 5000m and half-marathon.
''They were my first running medals,'' she said.
''I did things the wrong way round, really. I was just starting out in running and that was the first time I actually ran an 800m race.''
The time that day of 2min 23sec would have been a New Zealand 45-49 age-group record, but Gibbs could not claim it as she was not registered at the time.
Gibbs joined the Tauranga Ramblers Club on her return home from the Sydney games and later came under the coaching arm of former New Zealand cross-country representative Barry Ellis, who over the past two years has helped develop Gibbs into a very competitive middle-distance runner.
She lowered Bernie Portenski's 1998 New Zealand age-group record mark of 17min 32.13sec for the 5000m down to a slick 16min 44sec.
Until recently Gibbs was nothing short of impressive while setting personal-bests with each and every run.
''I think that's just being a late starter, really.''
A remarkable feat indeed for one who considered herself ''pretty hopeless at sport'' in her younger years.
''I used to throw sickies to avoid cross-country runs at school. Had I realised that I was all right at running back then, it might have been a different story.''
Early last month Gibbs showed a clean pair of heels to a highly competitive combined masters field to win the masters national cross-country title.
That came just four weeks after she finished seventh in the Gold Coast Marathon in 2hr 42min 56sec.
Gibbs is now targeting the world masters athletic championships in Brazil later this year, where she has set her sights on the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon.
