In May 2018, one of Marc Julien’s most anticipated dreams had finally come true: his first daughter, Ella Rose, was born into the world.
As he sat with his wife Cortney that day watching Ella take her first breaths, the Delray Beach couple was blissfully unaware of the struggles they’d soon face.
Over the previous five months, unbeknownst to him, there had been metastatic squamous cell carcinoma growing in Julien’s neck. Merely three weeks after Ella’s birth, just as he was getting to know his daughter and relishing in the beginning stages of fatherhood, Julien was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in his left lymphoid and tonsil — a diagnosis he feared would end his life just as his daughter was beginning hers.
He describes his reaction to the diagnosis as an “emotional free-fall” on his website (raam21.com). “My thoughts were immediately consumed with dying and of leaving my family and friends behind,” he describes. “I created lists of videos I would shoot for each of Ella’s milestones: her first steps, first day of school, tips on how to ride a bike, first love, heartbreak and marriage. And I repeatedly imagined Ella and Cortney watching the videos and hearing me say ‘I wish I could be there, I love you.’ News that you have cancer can only be met with utter devastation.”
Over the coming weeks, he decided death was simply not an option and worked with a team of doctors who put together a treatment plan and prepared him for what would lie ahead: seven weeks of radiation treatment, seven-hour chemotherapy sessions, hair loss, a feeding tube, severe sore throat, fits of choking and infernal thrush. “When you’re in the depth of it, it’s really, really rough,” Julien recollects. “You have to use your mind to create some sort of silver lining and figure out why you’re going through this and what it all means.”
As he fought through 10 weeks of cancer treatment, he began focusing on what he would do afterward. Previous to his diagnosis, Julien used to cycle for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program — a series of endurance challenges like triathlons, marathons and century rides that athletes could compete in while raising money for research for the society. Having done a few of their events in the past, he decided to take it to the next level after his recovery.
“In 2018 in September, I started thinking about [Race Across America],” Julien says. “That was sort of the depths of cancer treatment.” For athletes around the world, competing in and completing Race Across America is the feat of a lifetime. The world’s longest timed trial, RAAM is 30 percent longer than the Tour de France and, to make things even more challenging, participants are given just half the time to complete it. The race stretches from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md., across 12 states, 3,000 miles and 170,000 vertical feet of elevation — all of which he and his team plan on traversing in just under six days.
After reaching out to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, posting on social media and leveraging friends of friends, Julien successfully put together a full team of eight cyclists that could tackle the relay race together this June. Six of the members of the RAAM 21 team, as they call themselves, are fellow cancer survivors and all eight have been severely impacted by the disease. As they ride, they’ll be raising money for pediatric cancer research — a field of research Julien describes as “the calling for the rest of my life.”
As the race approaches, Julien speaks about the intense training regimen he’s committed to in order to prepare for the competition and the difficult journey he took from cancer treatment to high-level training. “Right after treatment I could barely get up the stairs without being winded, so I was starting at a very low baseline,” he quips.
After hiring a cycling coach, strength trainer and nutritionist, he began a years-long process of building the strength, power and stamina necessary for the race. Of the initial phases of recovery and training, he says “one of the bigger challenges is realizing and listening to your body and understanding where it is.” After becoming bedridden three months into training, as the result of overtraining, he dedicated himself to the science behind his workout routine and slowly but surely built his fitness levels.
Recently, he has been waking up at 4 a.m. to train during the week and rides between four and five hours on Saturdays in preparation for June. In a few more weeks he’ll be adding even more hours of riding to his schedule as he enters the final stage of preparation. “For me, these days when I don’t want to train, I just think about my little warrior,” Julien says. “Her name is Ever, she’s in cancer treatment now and so every morning when I wake up I think about her and it helps me get on the bike.”
As he rides, he’ll have a few names written on the frame of his bike — all names of children in treatment for pediatric cancer. “That’s the motivation to continue going out and training every day because it does get monotonous just riding on A1A,” he says. “I could probably know every pothole and every corner and every hill on A1A from Lighthouse Point to the top of Palm Beach, but it’s really just knowing what we’re doing and how we’re going to help kids that is the big driving force to getting me out there.”
Since his treatment, the Julien family has grown in size to welcome a now 4-month-old Taylor into the world. Julien says his battle with cancer ended up energizing him and turning his life around, saying “I tell people I think I’m crazy, but cancer is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s made me a much better husband, father, businessmen, boss — my life is so much more centered now and there’s way more balance than I had previously.”
To donate to RAAM 21, meet the team and hear their stories, visit raam21.com.