Veteran marathoner and retired soldier Gretchen Georgeanna Evans is a talker while she runs.
“The goal is always to meet as many people as I can and hear their amazing stories,” she said. “It’s the most uplifting part of a whole race.”
Fellow runners may notice that Evans, a command sergeant major who served 27 years in the Army, pays particular attention to their faces during conversation, even though they’re both running. That’s because she is lip-reading while completely deaf, a result of a brain injury suffered in Afghanistan.
The injury may have halted Evans’ Army career, but it also launched her onto an unexpected second act: raising money for causes near to her heart through athletic endeavors. That goal will take her through the streets of New York City this weekend to run the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon on behalf of Hope Story, a nonprofit assisting parents whose child has been given a Down syndrome diagnosis.
“I think that’s the key to life,” said Evans, 63. “Finding something to do for others so we don’t become self-licking ice cream cones.”
Evans, a petite Texas native, has been a runner since junior high. She says she fell in love with the team aspect of physical fitness after joining the Army in 1979, especially group runs.
“When we ran together at oh-dark-thirty, you could hear the sounds of the boots hitting the pavement and some of the cadences we would sing were ridiculous,” she said. “That was the most special time of the whole day.”
In 2006, after a career spent as an intelligence analyst, counterintelligence agent, policewoman and paratrooper, among other positions, then-46-year-old Evans survived a mortar blast that killed two other soldiers and ended her time in the Army. The explosion also took her hearing and left her suicidal. Like Lt. Dan in the film “Forrest Gump,” Evans wondered if perhaps she should have died on the battlefield.
She found her salvation through endurance events, eventually creating Team UNBROKEN in 2019 for others who had also experienced life-altering injuries, illnesses or traumas. Just one year later, they competed on the reality show “World’s Toughest Race” hosted by Bear Grylls.
“We were lost in the jungle at night, and Bear Grylls announced to 6 million people watching on TV, ‘There’s Team UNBROKEN lost in the jungle, and Gretchen’s deaf,’” laughed Evans, a finisher of at least 42 marathons. “Thanks, Bear — now everybody in the world knows I’m deaf!”
The day before the NYC Half, Evans plans to race another half-marathon in Washington, D.C. So, she says, she plans to take the race in the Big Apple, organized by the legendary New York Road Runners, at a relatively easy pace. More than 25,000 runners participate in this particular 13.1-mile race, winding their way from Brooklyn to Manhattan and ending in Central Park. The half is the sole time, other than New Year’s Eve, that Times Square is shut off to traffic.
“It’s not about a time on my watch or a PR, but what really motivates me is the collective and individual passions people have, and the amazing things they’re doing with their time and talents,” said Evans. “We think that’s the best way to spend the two hours: talking to people to learn about people’s causes and passions.”
Evans, a recipient of the 2022 Pat Tillman Award for Service at the ESPYs, as well the author of “Leading from the Front,” a memoir about her experiences, will be running the NYC Half with another member of Team UNBROKEN. The pair hopes to raise $10,000 for Hope Story.
“I think people would look at me and there is some pity, not out of malice, but they looked at me like I’m broken,” said Evans. “But I was still Gretchen, who had hopes and dreams and wanted to give back to the world.”
That’s why she wants to raise money for Hope Story: because she knows that it’s still possible to have an awesome life, even one containing immense difficulties.
“We at Team UNBROKEN don’t just run to run,” she said. “We always run in a way that we’re helping others.”
Visit Team Hope Story to support Evans’ efforts, and follow Team UNBROKEN on Instagram for more on her journey to help others.
