For 13,563 days in a row, Linda Evans never missed a run. The 68-year-old Westerville, Ohio, resident started streaking just two weeks after the birth of her daughter in 1980 and continued lacing up for nearly four decades, averaging four miles a day (and logging at least one mile each day).
Bad weather didn’t stop Linda—she’d simply run on the treadmill. Neither did those basic rituals of raising a child—she’d run laps around the soccer fields while her daughter, Carey Thomas, practiced. And she certainly didn’t let food poisoning and an overnight stint at the hospital a few decades ago thwart her streak—she asked her husband, Gary Evans, to take her on a run as soon as she was discharged.
“She was so resilient, I don’t know how she did it,” said Gary, 70.
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But around 9 a.m. on July 31, 2017, while out on a 12-mile run in preparation for the Columbus Marathon in October, Linda’s streak—and life—were cut short when a driver under the influence of drugs swerved off the road, hitting the retired public school teacher and killing her on impact.
“I was getting a root canal and she was supposed to meet me at the dentist office after her run,” Gary said. Linda was just a quarter-mile away from the office when she was struck. “It’s just devastating.”
The suspect, Jonathan B. Coffman, 32, of Delaware, Ohio, was indicted in October on four counts related to the hit-and-run and will go on trial soon.
In the meantime, Gary, Carey, and the entire Westerville community continue to remember—and honor—a teacher, grandmother, friend, artist, and runner whose passion for the sport was inspiring and infectious.
An unassuming start
Born in Champaign, Illinois, in 1948, Linda wasn’t a big athlete—and certainly not a runner—growing up. She discovered the sport by accident as a young adult while living on a Native American reservation in Oklahoma with the AmeriCorps VISTA program.
“She lived a half mile from the mailbox and would have to run down and back every day to get the mail,” Gary told Runner’s World. “That’s how she started running.”
After finishing her service in Oklahoma, Linda moved to Westerville and continued running, gradually building up her mileage. She tackled her first 26.2—the Athens Ohio Marathon—in 1976, and from there became hooked.
A few years later, the sport brought her and Gary together. The two were members of the Columbus Roadrunners Club in the ’70s and met in 1978 while in a five-person, 777-mile carpool from Ohio to Massachusetts for the Boston Marathon. When Gary drove the final stretch through western Massachusetts on a dark, winding two-lane highway, Linda crawled into the front seat to keep him company.
“We hit it off while everyone else was asleep,” Gary said. They shared their first kiss on the way to the starting line. A year later, they incorporated their passion for running into their nuptials when they married at the Sprite Sprint 5K in Bexley, Ohio.
“Running was our life and we loved running,” Gary said.
When Linda began streaking the next year, her aim wasn't to become a streaker.
“She was not interested in the limelight and wasn’t out for publicity,” Gary said. She didn't religiously document her streak or submit her progress to any streaking associations. She simply ran—day in and day out—because she loved the sport.
A wide and deep impact
Beyond her impact as a mother and a wife, Linda was a well-known fixture in the community.
“Some people pretend to be good, but Linda was a genuinely good person,” said Suzanne Fisher, 74, a fellow runner and close friend of the Evans family. “Linda was not really into the competition part of running and would never talk much about what she had accomplished.” Instead, the two often discussed Linda’s students.
“She had such compassion for them,” Fisher remembered. “Her passing—just like Linda herself—it’s brought us together.”
Following Linda’s death, the outpouring of support from the running community was immediate and overwhelming. Photos, videos, and Garmin screenshots with the hashtag #RunForLinda began popping up across social media, and a fundraising page to cover the costs for her memorial service and a commemorative bench was quickly set up. To date, it’s raised nearly $9,000, more than double the original goal.
Just two days after Linda’s death, a run was organized in her honor. Gary and Carey collected upwards of 50 of Linda’s running T-shirts and hung them at a local park. Local friends and out-of-town visitors from Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania laced up for a one-mile jaunt.
They remembered a woman who was, in their words, deeply kind, vibrant, never conceited or ostentatious, tiny (at 5-foot-2 and just 83 pounds) but tough, always up for anything.
“She loved to run along the river in Columbus and see the wildlife and flowers,” remembered her daughter, Carey Thomas, 37. “She always appreciated the little things.”
“She made the world and everybody in it so much better,” said Velma Matuszewski, 74, a local runner who met Linda more than 30 years ago through the Columbus running community. “There were probably hundreds of people who knew her. It was interesting going to her funeral because we thought of her as a runner, but you saw how many people that she influenced at her church, school, and in different neighborhoods. She was much more than just a runner.”
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A legacy continued
In addition to being a daily run streaker, Linda was also a legacy runner of the Columbus Marathon, competing in the race every single year since its inception in 1980. She also regularly ran other local races in Ohio, including the Cleveland Marathon, where she made headlines in 1981 for running the entire race while pushing Carey, then an infant, in a stroller. In an era before special running strollers were invented, the sight was a spectacle.
“They put her on TV and everyone was coming out to see the oddity,” said Gary, who ran the 5K earlier that morning. “They gave Carey candy and tied balloons to the stroller.”
The next day, Linda and Carey appeared on the front page of The Plain Dealer, one of the oldest and largest publications in Ohio.
The fanfare didn’t faze Linda, and after the race, she continued running with Carey—either in the stroller or, occasionally, strapped in a backpack.
Much of Carey’s childhood revolved around her parents’ running. And for that reason, Carey avoided picking up the sport herself for many years. “I was not a runner simply because my parents were runners,” she said.
But after giving birth to her first daughter in the fall of 2012, Carey, who now lives with her husband and children in Frederick, Maryland, realized running could be a great way to get in a workout and spend time with her own daughter. So just like Linda, she bundled her newborn in a stroller and laced up her shoes, becoming even more serious about the sport in 2015 after giving birth to her second daughter.
In 2017, she ran her first half marathon—a local race in Frederick. The experience inspired her to consider registering for the Columbus Marathon that fall. But she never had the chance to share the news with Linda.
If Linda had run the 2017 race as planned, she would have secured the title as the race’s longest female streaker, and it would have marked her 68th marathon.
“The hardest part is the fact that she would still be running right now,” said Carey, who decided to still run the race in honor of her mom. On Sunday, October 15, she suited up in a custom-made #RunForLinda T-shirt and Linda’s bib—No. 43—for an emotional 26.2 miles. More than 100 other runners in #RunForLinda shirts ran alongside her.
“Everyone would say ‘Go Linda’ and I really felt like she was running with me,” said Carey of the race day experience.
She ran with a pocket full of her mom’s ashes and finished in 4:34:26, just six minutes faster than Linda’s time the previous year. “I felt like I had a little piece of her with me,” said Carey, who didn’t stop at the finish line and instead ran into her father’s arms.
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Carey hopes to run the marathon again next year and continue her mom’s legacy. “Running gave her such happiness,” Carey said. “I’ve found a lot of comfort in it because I feel like I am with her when I run. It’s my time to be with her.”
Moving forward
About a month before Linda’s death, Gary suffered a hip injury that he’s been nursing ever since. Losing the love of his life—and not being able to run through the grief—has been, in a word, devastating.
He was finally able to run again in late December, managing a half mile the first day, then slightly more a few days later.
“I hope to be back in action by spring,” he said.
Perhaps one day soon, he’ll take the route near his old office, where a memorial bench, newly installed, sits in a beautiful and sunny spot overlooking Alum River.
“It’s hard now without her, but I’ve got six grandkids that I love dearly,” Gary said. “I’m hoping that they will grow up like Linda.”
Jenny is a Boulder, Colorado-based health and fitness journalist. She’s been freelancing for Runner’s World since 2015 and especially loves to write human interest profiles, in-depth service pieces and stories that explore the intersection of exercise and mental health. Her work has also been published by SELF, Men’s Journal, and Condé Nast Traveler, among other outlets. When she’s not running or writing, Jenny enjoys coaching youth swimming, rereading Harry Potter, and buying too many houseplants.
