The Victory Lap: Nathan Martin 🏆

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We’d like to thank UCAN, one of Nathan’s sponsors, for supporting this week’s Victory Lap and making this interview available to all readers.

This week we welcome Nathan Martin to the Victory Lap! He’s coming off an 8th place overall finish at the NYC Marathon – good for third American. We chat about his buildup, goals going into the race, and his record-breaking marathon last year at the Marathon Project in Arizona where he ran 2:11:05 to become the fastest ever US born African-American. Nathan career is a testament to the value in sticking to a program and believing in the process.

How are you recovering from New York?

I mean, overall, I feel pretty good right now. We haven't started back running yet. I’ll do my first run today and just see how my body feels. But yeah, initially after the race, I was feeling pretty rough. I wasn't sure if I was going to have any kind of random nicks or anything. But it feels like I recovered well and I'm getting ready to get back after it pretty soon.

You went to Spring Arbor University in Michigan, an NAIA college. What was the decision to go there like? You ended up winning a couple NAIA titles. What was your relationship with running at the time?

The big thing is, in high school I didn't come from a family that was like, hey, the next push is college, right? I wasn't giving it a crazy amount of thought. But the Spring Arbor coach at the time – Dante Ottolini, who is still my coach right now – he pursued me pretty hard and a lot of other colleges were just kind of sending me letters. And so in my head, I'm like, if I’m going to go somewhere, I'm going to go to the place where I see the person, and they're investing time in me, not people just sending out letters. That pushed me towards Spring Arbor.

It's incredible that you’re still being coached by him, there’s not too many runners at your level that stay with their college coaches. How excited has he been over the last couple of years where you’ve really taken your running to a different level?

He’s been ecstatic about it. For him it’s about connecting with me and making sure that he’s doing what he can to help further me in life.

Ultimately, that was through running. He was willing to do whatever he could and running just seemed to start taking off really well. And that's one of his biggest hopes – whatever I was doing, that I was successful. There's definitely been some ups and downs – having a relationship that long – but it's definitely paying off.

 You started to have a bit of a breakthrough in 2019 after quite a few years running post-collegiately already. Was there a greater emphasis on trying to run fast? What happened around that time that has helped you start competing at this level?

I did take a break from having a coach for like a year and a half or something like that. At the 2017 US Marathon Championships I ran 2:14:33 and I felt pretty good and my body felt strong. Right before that was when I disconnected from my coach.

There was a lot of issues going on with the college and him. And so I was like, oh, well, let me just kind of step back. Not to get too much into stuff – but we were trying to connect with the college to kind of help push my running career forward but there was some complications with that, so I stepped out for a bit and I was training myself.

And so for the 2017 Marathon Championships, I went to that and felt fantastic. I was only four or five months removed from having a coach. But then that whole next year, I trained myself and it wasn't like I did anything bad, it just felt like something was missing. I wasn't quite understanding how to put the work in and remove myself from the process.

Then I went into the Marathon Championships again in 2018 and I ran the exact same time, but I felt ten times worse doing it. And it was at that point, I'm like, you know what? The Trials are getting close. I need to figure this out.

So I reconnected with Dante. He’s known for having long conversations, and when I say long: like upwards of four hours sometimes. We hashed it out. “What does it look like for you to try and get to the Trails at your best? What does that look like for your life? What are your goals, what are your focuses?” All that kind of stuff. So we kind of worked from ground zero. When we first started out, what he thought I could do and what I could actually do was pretty bad. I remember trying to do an 800m workout at a pace that's now my tempo pace and having to stop halfway through because it was just too hard. But then we just kept working on things, going back to the basics, and it produced some kind of great response in my body and I started to have a lot of success.

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In 2020 you ran 2:11 at Marathon Project in Arizona, breaking a nearly 50-year-old record of being the fastest U.S. born Black marathoner. Did you know about Herm Atkins and the record beforehand and what's the significance of breaking that record for you?

I'm going to be honest, I had no idea about the record. Somebody reached out to me, I want to say, like, the day before, and said, “hey, you really have a shot to be the fastest U.S.-born Black marathoner.” And I'm like, Oh, that sounds awesome.

And I was more focused on not blowing up and having a bad race, because I needed to perform at this race to get us access to even bigger races. We’ve struggled in the past to get into some higher level races. It just seemed like the doors weren't opening, even though we had the early success that you're talking about.

So we were really hoping that the Marathon Project would help out with that, which obviously it did, in huge ways. But then when I hit the time and heard I broke the record, initially I was like, oh, wow, that's awesome, you know? Another record under my belt.

But then I started getting a lot of responses about me breaking it. People saying, “that's amazing” and how inspiring it is. And they kind of forced me to say, wait, am I thinking about things correctly? And so I kind of reframed how I thought about the record and it became evident it was more than just, you know, another record.

It's a way to reach out to people who may not see running as something they could do or something they should focus on, especially Black kids. You know, get them potentially into distance running. I’m not saying I'm some kind of amazing icon, but they can have somebody to look at to say, “well, if he did it, I can do it too.”

I think records like that are really significant. It had me reading about Herm Atkins and his incredible career in the 70s and 80s and without you breaking that record, I’m not sure I’m learning about him. Because of the response you got for breaking that record, has that led you to want to do more advocacy work in the future?

I definitely am feeling a lot more responsibility. My normal response is, you know, I'll connect and reach out to whoever I can. But I'm looking back at how I handle things now, having my platform, to help create justice and figure out ways to to push further.

I don't have exactly the right answer or exactly a direct thing I'm trying to do yet, but we're going to be a lot more willing to try and push in that direction.

How did your build up to New York go and what were you anticipating doing going into the race?

Our original plan was to target a half marathon because we thought the fitness and the workouts from that would really help what I was able to do in the marathon. But then we got offered to go to New York and it was one of those things that was like, oh wow, we can't turn this down. We had to work around whatever plans we had.

Our initial progression was going towards the track and kind of focusing on the 10k – seeing if we could qualify there. In that process were the 15k Champs – that didn't exactly go the way we wanted. So we readjusted after that and said, we need to start focusing on the marathon. So we took like a couple of weeks off to reset and recover from some injury issues I was having.

Then we started on the marathon focus and initially it was going pretty good. But the build overall was not exactly what we were looking for. There were a lot of ups and downs between pushing myself too hard and then also taking longer to recover.

We were lucky enough to do the 20k Champs, which again, overall didn't go horrible, but not necessarily what we wanted. After that there might have been seven weeks or eight weeks until New York. So it was like, hey, what do you need to get out of your training? What do we need to do?

We were mainly just focused on getting in that marathon-specific work. I was doing like, a workout a week or something like that. Just because my body was so fatigued. I was crushing the workouts after the 20k, like just straight crushing them. Aerobically, I'd feel fine. If it was up to just my energy systems, I'd be ready to go like two days later. But my legs were just super heavy and dead for like four or five days after each workout.

We just made sure we listened to the body and got in what we could. We were a little nervous going into New York because we were like, Oh, wow, either I could have an amazing day or I can get halfway in and I'll be turtling or something. But obviously it ended up going well.

How did you break the race down and what were the challenging parts of the race?

I had a couple of goals going into it.

I wanted to be a top-three American – I knew I didn't want the big clumping of US guys to leave me. And then I also wanted to make sure I was being smart up the hills and not doing anything crazy.

As far as executing that, I feel like I did it extremely well. At the beginning we were all clumped together going up the first hill and then when we went downhill, I knew, at least based on other races, that I was a pretty good downhill runner and so I used that to my advantage.

I was able to stay in the top, top group going through the second mile. But then after we plateaued, that's when Bekele and all those guys started to really take off. I think Droddy and True went with them as well.

So it was a decision. Do I say, Hey, I need to stay with whoever I can? Or do I need to be smart and listen to my body? And ultimately, you know, I've learned I prefer listening to my body. Let them do what they're going to do. And start making decisions when there's a lot less risk to start racing. Around mile three, there started to be two different packs: the top guys going for the win and then a little US pack with John Raneri and Jared Ward. I was right off of that second pack and it got to the point where I'm like, OK, this is ridiculous – they’re six seconds ahead of me and I might as well just get to the pack to race them.

And so from that point, I did whatever I could to stay with them.

 What was the most challenging part?

Energy system-wise, it was never truly difficult. There were definitely spots where I'm like, okay, we’re picking up the pace, let's see if I can hold on. But it was never a spot where I'm like do I let the pack go, or do I force myself to stay with them? There was never a decision like that.

I ended up being the one in the group to make the first real move, honestly. And I was a little shocked people weren’t going with me. It didn't get truly difficult until the last five miles, and that was when I started cramping a whole bunch. At that point Ben True and I were going back and forth, but around a mile to go, I was like, if I have any shot to beat this guy I cannot leave it to a kick – that’s not something I'm going to put money on. So then I take off really hard to try to finish but right around a thousand meters to go some guy yells, “Nice working guys, you got a mile to go!” and I'm like, wait, we have a mile to go? There's no way I can hold this pace for a mile.

And so I put the brakes on and then with like six hundred to go, Ben passes me and I'm like, Oh, Snap, we have to be close if he's already trying to pass me right now. I'm like, Yeah, this does look like we're finishing. And by the time I saw the finish line he had about two seconds on me and I couldn’t quite pull him in.

Do you think that American marathoners tend to group up more than they need to at these bigger US marathons because they’re so worried about beating each other?

I think it just comes down to right now, a lot of US guys are in similar fitness. You know, a lot of the guys are in the same general training area so they see each other all the time. They know each other's workouts and they can compare themselves.

And then – it is obviously hard, right? Because you have guys in the race who will run 2:07 and the only person we have right now who's definitively a 2:07 guy is Rupp. And so it's one of those things where you go out and you say, Well, I have a high chance of blowing up, or you know, you’re smart and you run with the people you know you have the ability to run with.

Obviously you don't want to end up in a situation where you're running by yourself, because that's a lot harder. You're not getting you're not getting the benefit of drafting or the benefit of being in the group.

It kind of devolves into either you're risking it for a crazy, big PR, and staying with a group that you probably shouldn't be with, or you're racing with a group that's around your level and you just try to figure out when to make a push to break them.

How did you practice fueling? How important is it for you to fuel correctly over the course of a marathon?

The biggest thing was trying to take aid when we would take it during race day to best simulate how things would be and feel on the day. But ultimately if I needed something we always prioritized the workout over simulating the race. UCAN primes me to perform my best. I take 2 scoops of the UCAN Energy before my workout and I feel much more sustained throughout the run. My ability to react during runs improves and I'm ready for whatever the race or workout throws at me.Without a doubt fueling is one of the biggest if not the biggest part of the marathon. I have a big focus on pre race fueling like taking UCAN before and making sure I am well hydrated. In-race fueling is definitely important as well, but you can make it through half the race before feeling the effects of not getting aid so what you do before you start is very important. With that said half the race is not the whole race — so we make sure I’m taking something at every opportunity.

Thanks to Nathan for joining us this week and make sure to follow along on his career via Instagram! And thank you again to UCAN for supporting their consistent support of this newsletter.