Nathan

Kelly: Let’s try and get to know you a little bit more away from the pitch. Firstly, I always like asking: what were you like as a youngster?

Nathan: If you asked my mam or dad, they’d say I was a headcase! I was just a bit itchy, I always had to move. I could never sit still and relax. I always had to do something. So they had to burn me out. I always wanted to be in the grass or playing football, just running around to drain my energy. I think I was hard work for my parents, I’d say it like that!

Kelly: It sounds like maybe it was quite a chaotic household. How many siblings have you got?

Nathan: I’ve got an older brother, a younger sister and a younger brother. I think it was just a constant battle of me trying to beat my older brother. It was just so hard because the age difference. We all had training at different times and they’d be running out of the house and you’d forget your boots or they’d be taking two cars in different directions. It was a bit of a carnage, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kelly: Are you still close now?

Nathan: Ah yeah, of course. I talk to them more or less every day on the phone. Every chance I get to go home I will. My mam goes to every game – home and away. She watches them all.

Kelly: So she flies over? Are they still in Ireland?

Nathan: Yeah, they live in Ireland, so she flies over and she goes everywhere to be fair.

Kelly: Home and away?

Nathan: Yeah.

Kelly: That is some commitment!

Nathan: I know, I tell her, ‘listen, you don’t have to’ and she’s like, ‘no, I want to’.

Kelly: Not everyone’s got a son that’s a Premier League footballer though… I kind of get the appeal!

Nathan: Yeah, I don’t think that she watches the matches. I think that she just looks at me the whole game and sees what I’m doing. She’ll come after, ‘Why were you scratching your leg so much in the match?’ … ‘I don’t know. How do you know that?’

Kelly: Aw, bless her, that’s really sweet. How would your best friend describe you?

Nathan: I’d like to think that they’d describe me as the same lad I was growing up. The first thing that would pop in their head… they wouldn’t say I’m a footballer. I think they’d just say, ‘ah Nathan, he’s just a good lad like… he’s a bit of craic and he comes out when he can’ … but I don’t think that they’d look at me as a footballer, which I really enjoy. And it just means when I’m with them, I can just be myself and just enjoy being one of the lads.

Kelly: So if the manager gives you a day off, what would you do?

Nathan: It depends. If it’s a weekday and it’s good weather, I’ll play golf with a few of the lads here and we’ll get out in the sun.

Kelly: Are you any good?

Nathan: I’m all right. Listen, I can play. I’m not the greatest, but I’m not the worst.

Kelly: Who do you play with here?

Nathan: The group right now is me, Keane Lewis-Potter, Kris Ajer, Hakon Valdimarsson. It’s a good crew because we have a lot of players and we do a little Ryder Cup-style.

Kelly: Oh nice!

Nathan: So it’s staff v players.

Kelly: Wow!

Nathan: Yeah, because there’s a lot of players. We did that last year. We did 18 holes in the morning, we went for some lunch, and then we did 18 holes in the afternoon and it was really good fun. Players won, so thank God!

Kelly: Oh, that was my next question. Have you got any secret hobbies?

Nathan: I like cooking, so that’s something. When I cook, I think I just forget about everything. I’m just in my own little zone and my head kind of goes quiet, which is nice.

Kelly: Are you a good cook?

Nathan: It depends who you ask…

Kelly: If I was asking your girlfriend…

Nathan: Yeah, she’s actually saying: ‘Ah, you’re getting better at cooking!’

Kelly: That’s a bit patronising!

Nathan: Yeah, and I was like… ‘Does that mean I was bad?’

Kelly: Fair enough. What do people get wrong about you the most?

Nathan: Maybe I get a bit of stereotypical: ‘Ah, he’s just a footballer.’ Maybe they get that and then think, ‘oh, he’s actually pretty nice to talk to… he’s all right… he’s kind of relaxed… he’s chill’.

I always want to be just a good person as well. That’s important for me, just to be a nice person, a good person, a caring person. As much as I want to be the best footballer I can ever be, I also want to be the best person I can be and I think that’s something that I always strive towards as well.

Kelly: What’s the toughest moment of your career been? Has there been a tough moment?

Nathan: I had one game for Brentford against Wolves and I had two mistakes in the game. I gave away two goals, we lost 3-1 or something like that and I got battered off the Wolves fans because I’d just left Wolves and the fans had so much to go against me, so much stick. I was like, ‘oh my God, this couldn’t have got any worse’.

To be fair, that night Thomas Frank rang me and he was like, ‘listen Nathan, that’s probably the worst game you’ll ever have in your career’, and he’s like, ‘so it’s only up from here’.

Victory was decided by a single stride Sunday morning during the 41st Los Angeles Marathon.

American Nathan Martin needed every foot of the 26.2-mile course to chase down leader Michael Kimani Kamau of Kenya, winning by 00.01 seconds an exciting finish that left spectators and athletes alike breathless. Martin posted a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, 16.50 seconds and forced the closest finish in race history.

“In any race, I just want to give 100%,” said Martin, 36. “I saw an opportunity to race at the end and give one last push. All I wanted to do is push myself.”

Martin, who clocked a personal best 2:10:45 at the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth., Minn., in 2023, surged in front as he got to the finish line alongside Kamau, who immediately collapsed and was attended to by medical personnel before being carried off on a stretcher.

Kenyan Priscah Cherono waves her hands in the air as she wins the women’s elite race during the L.A. Marathon on Sunday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

“I made an actual move five miles out … when I saw no one else was picking up the pace. I decided I needed to push,” Martin said. “At a mile and a half to go, I could see the leader and with 800 meters to go, I was thinking, ‘I’m catching him.’”

Ethiopian Enyew Nigat (2:14:23) was third, former University Florida runner Josh Izewski (2:14:43) was fourth and 2024 winner Dominic Ngeno of Kenya was fifth in 2:16:17.

Martin is the second straight American champion, following former Montana State University standout Matthew Richtman, whose time of 2:07:56 in 2025 was the second-fastest in race history and the fastest on the Stadium to the Stars course, which debuted five years ago.

Runners take part in the L.A. Marathon, moving through downtown on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

This year’s race drew 27,000 runners, beginning at Dodger Stadium and ending on Santa Monica Boulevard at the Avenue of the Stars in Century City. Traditionally held on the third Sunday in March, this year’s race got moved up one week to avoid clashing with the Oscars, which will be held on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre along the race route.

Kenyan Priscah Cherono took the lead immediately in the women’s race and was already two minutes ahead of the chase pack by the ninth mile. The 45-year-old cruised to victory in 2:25:18.31, well ahead of runner-up Kellyn Taylor, who won the Austin Marathon in 2:33:29 on Feb. 15.

It is fitting that Cherono, on International Women’s Day, earned a $10,000 bonus for winning the Marathon Chase as the first runner, male or female, to cross the finish line. The women were given a 15-minute, 45-second head start and in the 16 Chase competitions to date a woman has won the race-within-a-race on 11 occasions.

Cherono, who won The Marathon Project on Dec. 21 in Chandler, Ariz., in a personal-best time of 2:25:17, was only three seconds off that pace Sunday and said afterward she knew she would win.

Runners compete in the L.A. Marathon, moving through downtown on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“I was feeling OK and I felt I could take it all the way,” said the mother of three who represented her country in the 5,000 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Normally I train alone, so I was happy running by myself.”

Taylor, a 39-year-old mother of four and a certified firefighter from Wisconsin, clocked 2:27:36:00 to earn the second-place medal, one spot in front of Antonina Kwambai, last year’s runner-up.

“I would’ve liked to have won, but my time is fair for this course,” Taylor said. “I did everything I could to stay in it, but [Cherono] went out really hard and ran a great race. We were hopeful she was gonna come back, but she didn’t.”

The men’s wheelchair winner was 25-year-old Miguel Jimenez Vergara, whose time of 1:42:13.28 was good enough to hold off Colombian and three-time winner Luis Francisco Sanclemente, who settled for second in 1:45:33.01. Canadian Josh Cassidy (1:45:53.60) was third.

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1. Shadows are cast on the road as L.A. Marathon runners move toward the finish line. 2. Spectators watch the L.A. Marathon and hold up signs cheering on participants. 3. Kenya’s Michael Kimani Kamau is tended to by personnel after falling at the finish line. 4. Priscah Cherono, of Kenya, celebrates with a crowd of supporters after finishing first in the L.A. Marathon women’s race. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

“I did this last year and got second,” Jimenez Vergara said after maintaining a robust 3:54 per-mile pace. “I absolutely got my butt kicked last year on Mile 4, but that’s where I took the lead this time and I tried not to look back.”

Jimenez Vergara, who resides in San Diego, set a personal-best of 1:27.17 at the Grandma’s Marathon two years ago and is looking forward to making his Boston Marathon debut on Patriots’ Day in April.

Hannah Babalola, a former Nigerian now living in Chicago, won the women’s wheelchair division for the third year time in four years in 2:17:48.86.

The Los Angeles Marathon was first held in 1986, with Rick Sayre (2:12:19) and fellow American Nancy Ditz (2:36:17) taking the men’s and women’s Open titles. Markos Geneti set the men’s course record of 2:06:35 on the previous Stadium to the Sea course in 2011 and fellow Ethiopian Askale Marachi set the women’s mark of 2:24:11 on the same layout in 2019.