At mile 7, Rachel Apa texted her father, “Never felt better.” By mile 20, her texts had shrunk to one word: “Ow.” His next message, at mile 23, telling her it was the final stretch, never got an answer. Two miles from the finish line of her first New York City Marathon, she collapsed in Central Park. She died at the hospital that night. She was 24.
Apa, from Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, went down near the 24-mile mark at about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 1, according to the New York Police Department. Her father, Steve Apa, was tracking her on the race app from home and told her early on, “This is your first marathon. Go easy. Don’t go out too fast.” Her mother, Michelle, was waiting near mile 25 when the family noticed she had stopped moving on the tracker. A bystander started CPR, marathon medical staff used a defibrillator, and paramedics took her to Mount Sinai Medical Center, where doctors worked on her for about six hours. She was pronounced dead at around 9:40 p.m.
Steve Apa told The New York Times she died of rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition where damaged muscle breaks down and poisons the body. The city medical examiner’s office said Tuesday it is still investigating the cause of death.
This was her first marathon. The former Bucknell University field hockey player, a lifelong athlete, had trained for months and was running for the Parkinson’s Foundation in honor of her grandfather, who died of Parkinson’s disease and who she called her role model. She worked as a product manager at the same manufacturing company her father and grandfather worked for, had recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and was pursuing an MBA.
New York Road Runners, which organizes the race, confirmed her death on Tuesday and said she was the first runner to die from a medical incident at the marathon since 2024. This year’s race was the biggest in its history, with more than 60,000 finishers.