AMERICAN MARATHONING suddenly has a new — and unlikely — contender. In only his second time running the distance, unheralded Matt Richtman pulled off a shocking performance on March 16 to become the first American man to win the Los Angeles Marathon since Paul Pilkington in 1994. The Montana State grad broke away from the field in the 16th mile and went on to win in an eye-opening 2:07:57. Though the point-to-point LA course is not considered record-eligible due to elevation loss, the time still puts Richtman at equal-No. 6 on the U.S. all-time, all-conditions list.
“I wasn’t really surprised that I ran that time,” the 25-year-old Richtman says. “I wasn’t necessarily expecting it, but definitely knew I was capable of it.”
Not bad for a guy who had never qualified for an NCAA track championship, and whose best NCAA Cross finish was 26th. His 10,000 PR of 28:21.79 was only 33rd best among Americans in 2024.
After graduating last spring, he tried a couple of local half-marathons in Montana (running 65:45 and 62:34) and was encouraged enough to enter the Twin Cities Marathon in October. “It was something I never really planned out or really even had dreams about,” he says of making the leap to the distance. “It was just trying it out. I was in shape coming off college training and my own training block, so I really just wanted to give it a go and see how it went.”
It went pretty well. His 2:10:47 for 4th place in Minnesota was the 10th-fastest by an American last year, and drew the attention of Asics, which soon signed him to his first professional contract. He started off the new year with a pair of high-profile half-marathons, clocking 61:20 at Houston in January, then improving slightly to 61:14 to finish 6th at the USA Half-Marathon Championships in Atlanta two weeks before the LA Marathon.
“Coming into the race I didn’t really have a time expectation,” he admits of his second marathon. “The only thing I really had, timewise, was knowing that my training was a little bit better than it had been for Twin Cities. So I knew I was in at least 2:10 shape, but I was feeling confident that I could run faster than that.”
His main reason for picking LA for his second marathon was the opportunity to compete for the win, based on the race’s history. (It also didn’t hurt that Asics sponsors the event.) “The plan that I was formulating in the race was to at least wait for an hour, and then after that if I was feeling good I could start to push the pace,” he says. He followed that strategy and by 25K there were only four men left in contention. A few minutes later Richtman surged ahead, ran the last 10 miles solo and won by 3 minutes.
Richtman, who grew up in Elburn, Illinois, won the 2017 State 2A cross country title for Kaneland High and ran 4:17.92 for 1600 and 9:14.96 for 3200 on the track. He initially attended Bradley (redshirting his first year) and finished 3rd in the Missouri Valley Conference cross country championships in 2019.
During the pandemic he transferred to Montana State in Bozeman and qualified as an individual for the ’21 NCAA XC Champs (finishing 112th). He led the team to nationals the next two years, placing 40th in ’22 and 26th in ’23. But he never won a Big Sky title or qualified for NCAAs in track, so he understands why he wasn’t on the radar of most fans of the sport before his marathon success.
“I never really had a great track season. I had run good times, but never really had the same racing experience, I suppose, as I have had on the roads,” he says. “For me the track is almost an artificial feeling, that you’re so focused on staying on the rail, staying in the training, hitting a specific pace each lap. I don’t really get that as much in the marathon, especially on a course that’s hilly. Each mile is different, some are quicker than others, some slow down if you’re going uphill. So it’s a different style of racing. That’s where I excel, I can adapt to those changes in the race, the rolling.”
Since graduation he had been living at home in Illinois, working at his father’s carpentry business and volunteer coaching at his old high school, but in February he returned to Bozeman, which sits at about 4900 feet (1500 meters) of elevation. He is currently self-coached, mixing and matching his routine from Montana State with other programs, often improvising on the go. He has only recently started logging weeks of more than 100 miles. “Workouts aren’t anything crazy, just mile repeats or something like that,” he says. “Just getting those miles in.”
Richtman isn’t sure what his next race will be. He would be interested in representing Team USA at the World Championships in Tokyo in September, should he be offered a spot. “We’ll start beginning to think about future races and opportunities that are on their way soon,” he says. “But for the time being I’m just taking some time down, letting my body recover from the marathon.”
