ChicagoFit
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The musician Judas Priest yells "breaking the law, breaking the law" in defiance of a world full of rule-makers, prosecutors and executioners. Last Sunday, March 8, 2026, Nathan Martin did a Saint Ralph on us and smashed the law on his way to winning the LA Marathon! And it reminded me, once more, that laws are there for me to break too!
On Sunday, the 2026 LA Marathon tore up every rule there is. Maybe it passed you by? Maybe you assumed the finish was already written? How it would go.
A real-life "Saint Ralph" came out of this real-life marathon, and his name is Nathan Martin: 36-year-old, warp-and-woof, thoroughly mundane substitute teacher and high school coach out of Michigan. Just like the fictional Saint Ralph on my profile image, the "rule" says he fails. He gets mocked. He gets laughed at.
He turned the last stretch of the race into something out of a film. Like the fictional Ralph Walker, Martin lined up as a gritty underdog, a fellow juggling ordinary classroom duties alongside the quiet persistence of a marathoner. Victory? "Fat chance". The rule, after all, is that Kenya wins.
Coming round toward the finish, Martin was hunting down Kenya's Michael Kimani Kamau, a running machine if ever there was one! Kamau's lead looked commanding. Could anyone doubt who was destined for the podium?
Mirroring the St. Ralph movie, Martin simply would not accept the "fat" reality of his exhaustion, nor the arithmetical distance between himself and the man in front. His belief was in breaking the law of probable outcomes, and nothing short of a miracle would do.
Those last 800 meters carried the whole drama. Was a miracle coming? With the leading Kenyan finally in view, Martin set off on an "improbable chase", locating a gear that has no business existing after 26 miles of hammering the pavement. Watch it on youtube and you will feel what I felt watching it: "shame Martin is that far back so close to the finish. He will never close that gap."
The event's tightest ever finish—a staggering one-hundredth of a second—saw Martin lean into the tape and rip the victory away from a collapsing Kamau. That was not merely a win.
It was "breaking the law". It is a slap at the whole "Saint Ralph" idea: that hope, paired with a "C-grade" substitute teacher's refusal to quit, can overturn whatever the rule makers predicted. With that win Martin becomes the first U.S.-born Black runner in decades to take a major city marathon. Rules get assumed by everyone. For them, the race is decided before the gun even goes.
So today, do not go stealing other people's souls with your rules, your prosecutions, your executions. Break laws instead. I am allowed to be a Saint Ralph and make miracles happen in my own life. Martin showed it can be done.
On Sunday, the 2026 LA Marathon tore up every rule there is. Maybe it passed you by? Maybe you assumed the finish was already written? How it would go.
A real-life "Saint Ralph" came out of this real-life marathon, and his name is Nathan Martin: 36-year-old, warp-and-woof, thoroughly mundane substitute teacher and high school coach out of Michigan. Just like the fictional Saint Ralph on my profile image, the "rule" says he fails. He gets mocked. He gets laughed at.
He turned the last stretch of the race into something out of a film. Like the fictional Ralph Walker, Martin lined up as a gritty underdog, a fellow juggling ordinary classroom duties alongside the quiet persistence of a marathoner. Victory? "Fat chance". The rule, after all, is that Kenya wins.
Coming round toward the finish, Martin was hunting down Kenya's Michael Kimani Kamau, a running machine if ever there was one! Kamau's lead looked commanding. Could anyone doubt who was destined for the podium?
Mirroring the St. Ralph movie, Martin simply would not accept the "fat" reality of his exhaustion, nor the arithmetical distance between himself and the man in front. His belief was in breaking the law of probable outcomes, and nothing short of a miracle would do.
Those last 800 meters carried the whole drama. Was a miracle coming? With the leading Kenyan finally in view, Martin set off on an "improbable chase", locating a gear that has no business existing after 26 miles of hammering the pavement. Watch it on youtube and you will feel what I felt watching it: "shame Martin is that far back so close to the finish. He will never close that gap."
The event's tightest ever finish—a staggering one-hundredth of a second—saw Martin lean into the tape and rip the victory away from a collapsing Kamau. That was not merely a win.
It was "breaking the law". It is a slap at the whole "Saint Ralph" idea: that hope, paired with a "C-grade" substitute teacher's refusal to quit, can overturn whatever the rule makers predicted. With that win Martin becomes the first U.S.-born Black runner in decades to take a major city marathon. Rules get assumed by everyone. For them, the race is decided before the gun even goes.
So today, do not go stealing other people's souls with your rules, your prosecutions, your executions. Break laws instead. I am allowed to be a Saint Ralph and make miracles happen in my own life. Martin showed it can be done.
