As Nathan Martin prepares for his final collegiate track meet, a look back is in order on the most decorated Cross Country, and Track and Field athlete to ever wear the Cougar Blue and Gold. 

It all started way back when Martin was in the sixth grade.  The students did something called a mile in a third. He finished in a place he wasn't happy with, somewhere along the lines of top 20 or top 30. "I was like 'Wow that sucked.' I wanted to get better than that," Martin said.

At first he didn't do anything to get better. The next year he was just faster. He started finishing first and second when they did the mile in a third.

"People started telling me 'you should do track, you should do cross-country," he said.  "I said, 'I don't know if I want to do that. Maybe I'll think about it."

It was two years later, in eighth grade after the cross-country season had already started that he decided to give competitive running a shot. He finished first on the team in their first meet.  One might say that after that event, Martin was off to the races.

It was during a meet in high school when Martin met Spring Arbor University's head coach Dante Ottolini. Martin at the time wasn't really looking to go to college, but was encouraged by his high school coach. "He told me with how well I was running that I could go to a lot of different places." And so, Martin ended up at Spring Arbor University.

Martin participated in cross-country and track at SAU. The 2012 season was unlike any other for the men's cross-country team. Their story was featured in the university's publication, "Journal."

The story reads: Before leaving for a meet Coach Ottolini held a pre-race talk that allowed Martin to share the news about his mom's battle with cancer. They bonded in the locker room over tears and prayer. Martin decided to stay behind and not go to the meet and the team left with the words of "In Christ Alone" still on their lips.

For all of the 2012 season, SAU as a team was ranked in the top 20. But, in order to make it to the NAIA National Championship as a team they had to place high enough at a qualifying meet, or win the Crossroads League Championship to make it to nationals.

The meet the team was looking to qualify at, and left Martin behind, was the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Great Lakes Challenge, but Martin's mom had passed away and her funeral was scheduled for the same day and time of the meet.

Martin's teammate, Kyle Anderson, summed up the choice the team had to make best and as he said in the Journal, "When coach introduced the possibility of skipping the meet for the service, no one disagreed. Not one person. What would seem like a difficult decision for a lot of teams seemed like a no brainer to us. We knew that if we skipped this memorial service, we would regret it."

Martin and Anderson both traveled to NAIA Nationals as individual qualifiers and finished seventh and eleventh, respectively.

For Martin, being featured in the "Journal" is cool, but he still hasn't seen it. "I try not to take it to my head and think on it a lot." he said. He's honored by it, but humbled by it as well.

In another piece posted in the "Journal" about Martin was his 5,000m National Title at the NAIA indoor track and field national meet. As the reigning indoor 5000m Champ, his success continued into the outdoor season.

"I thought it would be cool to break SAU's (Tony Luttrell's) 5,000m record," said Martin.  "But I was more focused on breaking 14 minutes.  Obviously, because it was fast enough, as long as I could achieve that I wouldn't have to worry about breaking the record".

Martin recalls the race, in which he broke the record, as a very fast race. The field included a lot of professional runners and the top collegiate guys. "I went into race trying to stick to the pack and see what happens. I pretty much hung onto the pack, and lucky for me they weren't just flat out going as hard as they could, but staying conservative which was pretty much the pace I was trying to stay on. So in the first mile and a half the race went out just the way it needed to for me."

The leaders eventually separated from the pack, but there was a group that Martin continued to hang onto. "With a lap to go I was looking at the time, trying to figure out in my head what that put me through and I was like if I push hard I could break 14. And I finished up it was 13:52." The SAU record, set 37 years ago, by Tony Luttrell, was 14:07.

At the Crossroads League Championship meet Martin took first in the 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m. "I knew I could win the 1,500 and I knew I could win the 5,000, but the 800 was the only thing I was worried about," said Martin. He didn't need to worry as he moved up from dead last during the first 200m into first with 400m to go.  

Martin attempt at another NAIA National Championship will come on Thursday night (May 23) on the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University.  Martin's 10,000m race is scheduled to begin at 8:45pm

Martin's plans for after graduation are still unknown – he has no job lined up and doesn't know whether he'll be joining a running club somewhere else in the country or staying near Coach Ottolini in Spring Arbor – But, the one thing he knows for sure, he'll still be running.