I swear my jaw literally dropped at least five times listening to Ann Freeman, our NRC Runner of the Month. With each moment of sincere surprise and disbelief, I wondered how in her five years of running with NRC I had never heard about these amazing, sometimes gut-wrenching and truly unique things that make Ann, Ann.
We’d just completed a sweaty, 1pm run that August afternoon intensified by the broken A/C at the coffee shop where we sat, when I asked what Ann’s favorite thing was about fall. Smiling she answered, “The cooler weather, races, changing colors…It’s just refreshing!” Then, laughing she added, “Should we mention its 100 degrees in here? New York City and Central Park in fall. Oh, I like winter, too!”
Ann is an adventurer at heart. She loves to travel, run (of course) and loves the great outdoors. She grew up in the picturesque terrain of Butte, Montana where the summers are mild and the winters give a whole new definition to “cold”, but she has no problem hopping on a plane to explore someplace new whenever she gets the chance.
Her earliest running role models were her father and siblings. People in their small town could set their clock to her Dad’s lunchtime 5 mile run, circling the same path every workday. After he passed, Ann had lots of people tell her how they missed seeing him blazing by. He even had a special loop mapped out that he and his kiddos would run on the weekends and, from what I hear, they all got the running gene. Ann says she is the slower runner in the family, but having qualified for Boston nine times that’s clearly a relative term!
On top of her nine ascents of Heartbreak Hill, she has done at least 20 or 30 more marathons, but she isn’t counting. I mean it. She actually isn’t exactly sure of the total, but the list includes Seattle (her first), Portland, Vegas, Miami and Orlando, Chicago, Marine Corp. (one of her all-time favorites), and Grandma’s in Duluth. (Don’t even ask her how many halves she’s done!) Now, she says she’s retired from marathons, but I have the feeling if the right destination race came her way she’d be in. Dublin, Paris and London may have been mentioned.
She ran the New York City Marathon three times during her 12 years living there, a city that holds a special place in her heart. After college, Ann wanted to experience big city life. She sent out job applications to her top three cities and got an offer in NYC where her brother was living at the time. Ann moved to NYC on September 7, 2001, but could never have known what would come in those days ahead.
On 9/11, she was working in a high-rise in Midtown when the first attackers flew into one of the twin towers. The panic, the shock, the fear – so many memories remain with her from that experience, some still vividly to this day. With no cell phone, she asked her new employer if she could make a long-distance call to her mother to let her know she was okay before leaving to walk to her brother’s apartment closer to the Twin Towers, praying he would be there when she arrived.
She remembers walking down the middle of 5thAvenue. How it seemed like a ghost town, no traffic or crowds of people, just quiet except for the random emergency siren. She remembers feeling as if she’d moved through an invisible wall into a zombie movie when she first started seeing survivors coming out of the ashes and debris.
She saw women’s feet bleeding and in that moment, she realized that in her numbness she hadn’t noticed her own painfully inadequate heels. She stopped into the first shoe store she saw and she’ll never forget how surreal it felt, in that store packed with women all needing something so simple, in the midst of the horror was going on around them. She bought a pair of dark red Keds that she wears only on the anniversary of that day.
Ann got back to the apartment and thankfully, her brother and his roommate were both okay. She was fine physically, but struggled with survivor’s guilt as friends, family and others kept asking about her and how she was doing. For some, experiencing something of that magnitude their first week in a new city, may have sent them back home, but not Ann. The way the city came together and the strength, generosity and compassion she saw in New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11 made her want to stay even more.
It took a few years, but Ann settled into her New York life. (Ask her about the NYC Seafood Platter!) She met her hubby, Jason Freeman who is a pilot, waiting to take off on a flight back to LaGuardia from Nashville. She was supposed to be on a plane to London, but fate had other plans.
The flight attendant announced they were waiting on a pilot. “You can fly this plane, can’t you,” Ann jokingly asked. A few quips later, Ann and Jason were steeped in conversation. She offered to show him around Manhattan, and the rest is history!
Ann and Jason are NRC’s resident Vibram FiveFingers wearers! She has worn the minimalist running shoes for years and Jason wore them before he met her. However, in another jaw-dropping moment, I learned that she used to run in double-soled moccasins (see them in the photo with the flowers on them)!!!
“Soled” on them by her sister who discovered them at a Farmer’s Market in Montana, she kicked off her Brooks and made those her running shoes, until her brother convinced her of the benefits of Vibrams.
When Ann isn’t running, she’s helping people with their estate plans and taking care of her cat, Clara, who sometimes goes with her on her travels! Next time you get the chance to run with Ann Freeman, I hope you do. You’ll hear more about her adventures and watch out for bugs… your jaw just may drop.
by Amy Owsley