Gretchen Evans started running long distance in the military. She ran 3 to 5 miles every morning, and occasionally went on lengthier road marches. She had run track in grade school, but the military showed her how much she enjoyed the sport.
“Even though we ran in formation in the military and we’re all out there together and we’re singing those crazy songs, it always put a smile on my face,” she said. “It always felt like I did something for myself in the morning to start my day. I’m taking care of this, and I can go out and help others.”
Evans, 66, no longer thinks of 5 miles as a long-distance run. On Sunday, she ran in her 60th marathon: the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.
Evans loves the Marine Corps Marathon for its military ties. The course begins near Arlington National Cemetery and ends at the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial. Mile 13, which stretches along East Potomac Park, is lined with the photographs of fallen soldiers.
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“It’s sacred,” she said.
Evans grew up in Abilene, Texas, a small city in the center of the state. Her father, a World War II veteran, instilled in his children a love of sports and country. Evans played tennis in addition to running track, and her two brothers played football.
Evans’ parents died when she was in middle school. Her oldest brother, then 21, came back to Abilene to help his younger siblings through high school. Evans studied at Texas Tech University for one year, but she struggled to pay for her education on her own.
She joined the military at 19 in order to take advantage of the G.I. Bill. “I thought it was going to be: go four years, get out, finish my education,” she said. She chose to serve in the Army, the same branch as her late father.
Instead, she fell in love with the military. Her service gave her a newfound sense of purpose. “You’re part of something that’s bigger than yourself,” Evans said. She would go on to serve in the military for 27 years, rising to the position of command sergeant major.
Fourteen years into her military career, Evans ran her first marathon. On the course in Tucson, Arizona, she experienced a communion similar to what she found in military service. “If you want to see the best picture of humanity, go watch a marathon,” she says. “You are trying to do something hard, and you get all these people on the side of the street cheering for people they don’t even know. To me, that’s a snapshot of what humanity should look like every day.”
Evans’ time in the military came to an abrupt end in Afghanistan in 2006, when a mortar blast caused a traumatic brain injury and total hearing loss. She checked into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda where she spent months recovering and learning how to live as a deaf person.
Three months into her stay, Evans ran her first mile around the Walter Reed campus, weeping. “I thought ‘I can still do this,’” she said.
In the years since, running has become indispensable to her healing process.
“The rocket blast took my hearing. The rocket blast certainly changed the dynamics of the way my brain works. It rearranged my face a little bit,” she said. “But what I didn’t want the rocket blast to take was the things that I love, and running was one of those.”
As Evans reintegrated into civilian life, she sought out a new organizing mission for herself. “I wanted that feeling of doing something that was bigger than me, something that was helping people, something that made a difference in my world,” she said.
She formed Team Unbroken, a running team composed of disabled athletes. “I wanted to take my passion for running and have other people experience how healing it could be,” she said.
Team Unbroken includes both veteran and civilian athletes. Veterans, she said, have a tendency to self-isolate. Leading Team Unbroken became a way for Evans to help other veterans adapt to the civilian world. “I purposely put civilians on my team so that we would learn about each other,” she said. “The best way to learn about somebody is to do something really hard with them, right?”
Coming off the Marine Corps Marathon, Evans’ only goal is to keep going.
“I want to be running in my 80s,” she said. “I want to enjoy running until the wheels come off.”