A Marine family fighting a cancer diagnosis plans to pass the Marine Corps Marathon finish line together this year.
Two sisters, both Marines, will be pushing their father, who is facing a stage IV colorectal cancer battle, all 26.2 miles of the race.
“I ran cross country, my kids all ran cross country,” Mark Rauch told WTOP, describing his family’s love of running.
Daughter Julie Sapusek described her father’s first marathon when he was 65 years old.
“Back in 2019, we got my dad to do a marathon Twin Cities Marathon,” Sapusek said.
Rauch said he stopped and walked but his daughter posed a question that gave him a second wind.
“I stopped and walked and Julie goes, ‘Dad, you have to make a decision. You’re going to have to live with this the rest of your life. You’re going to finish or you’re going to quit.’ I picked it up,” Rauch said. “I finished that marathon.”
Quit does not seem to be in this family’s vocabulary. Sapusek was a Marine until 2002; her sister 2nd Lt. Emily Rauch, is set to attend Marine Flight School next month. Both have run several marathons.
Sapusek ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2017 with the nonprofit Team Medals of Honor.
“I ran in honor of a friend of mine that had passed in an Osprey accident in 2000 … I’ll never forget that at the start of the marathon, they did the Osprey flyover,” Sapusek said.
She loved the marathon, especially seeing the nation’s capital with all its monuments and the Marines’ “boots and utes,” or boots and utilities — the utility uniform typically used for physical training.
Sapusek brought her sister along two years later, and the whole family tried to run the Marine Corps Marathon three years ago, but it was delayed by the pandemic.
In early 2022, before they could at last cross the finish line together, Rauch received a stage IV colorectal cancer diagnosis. The idea of running together seemed dashed.
“You start realizing there may be ‘lasts’ of things,” Sapusek said. “And it just wasn’t meant to be.”
But in July, Sapusek learned about the Marine Corps Duo Rider team and emailed the marathon organizers to see whether she and her sister could run while pushing their dad in a specialized racing wheelchair.
“They replied immediately, ‘Yes!'” Sapusek said. “That was really cool to just think that we would actually have the opportunity to do this with that, and to get them to be able to check this off his bucket list.”
Rauch broke down when his two daughters told him he would be able to participate in this year’s race.
“It was so meaningful to me to have my two Marine daughters push me and to be in such a monumental event,” Rauch said.
They found a chair through Special Compass, a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities participate in sports and other recreation.
While they have the chair, they haven’t quite practiced yet. But this is not a family that quits.
“We’re gonna adapt and overcome. Yeah, that’s what we do,” Sapusek said.
The upcoming Marine Corps Marathon is more than just a 26.2 mile run for the two. For Rauch, it is a point of pride and what he describes as a “living event.”
“It entails history. It entails sacrifice, duty, service, honor, integrity, the military. It’s alive — to me, this marathon is living,” said an emotional Rauch. “To be able to participate, I’m so thrilled. It’s very meaningful.”
For Sapusek, it’s an overwhelming sense of pride.
“You feel the patriotism. There’s so many Marines out there that just carrying American flags. And I tried to thank them all,” she said.
In November, Rauch will escort both of his Marine daughter to an annual Marine Corps Ball in Pensacola, Florida.
“I get rested up for the ball. Check on some of my dance move,” joked Rauch, while wearing a “My daughters are Marines” sweater.
