Former NFL Player, Amani Toomer, Uses TrainingPeaks and Lifesport Coaching to Prepare for NYC Marathon
Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 3:55PM 
Last Sunday, more than 45,000 people participated in the ING New York City Marathon. There were quite a few runners who used TrainingPeaks to prepare themselves for the race, including our own VP of Sales and Marketing, Jeremy Duerksen. While waiting for the race to start, he found himself talking to former NFL player Amani Toomer and his coach, Chris Thomas. Chris is a coach with LifeSport Coaching and he used TrainingPeaks to help prepare Amani to run his first marathon.
What was extra special about Amani's race was that Timex donated $1 to the New York Road Runners Youth Programs for EACH person Amani was able to pass during the race! Amani passed about 20,000 people AND set a new record for NFL players who have run the NYC Marathon.
We were interested in hearing what it takes to get a former professional football player to the finish line of a marathon. So we talked to Amani's coach, Chris Thomas, about his strategy.
TrainingPeaks: What kinds of challenges did you face (as a coach) to take someone from a pro football background to an endurance running event? Were there concerns or issues with injuries that you had to adapt to? Were there scheduling issues you had to work around? Was it easy to keep Amani motivated?
Chris Thomas: My first concern was to keep Amani injury free. He’s a bigger frame to run an endurance event and he has had 3 knee surgeries. So we went into the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC to do a run gait analysis. We wanted to make sure that there were not any major structural issues. Fortunately there were not any. I wanted to get Amani to run with a frequency at the beginning and low intensity to build his base. He had never run longer then 5k before. Amani is a very self-motivated individual. There was not any problems keeping him motivated. In fact, I had to hold him back a bit as he wanted to get going as quickly as possible.
TP: How did you structure his training leading up to the race? What was his longest run? How were you measuring his progression?
CT: I started Amani off with a half marathon build for the first 6 weeks, then I switched over to a full marathon build once I was confident that Amani was handling the training load appropriately. Amani did 3 20 milers and his longest duration run was 3 hours and twenty minutes. I would have Amani do monthly run fitness tests to see how he was adapting to the loads and check his threshold pacing.
TP: Any tips for other coaches working with former athletes looking to get into endurance events?
Be patient as the athlete adjusts to endurance training. Don’t push to hard to soon just because someone is an elite athlete in another sport.
TP: What was his fitness level/routine like when you started?
CT: Amani was about 240lbs and was only running occasionally when we started. Amani was not in his best shape of his life.
TP: What physiological changes did he go through over the course of the training?
CT: Amani dropped almost 40lbs and really leaned down. It was truly amazing to see his transformation. He really turned into a runner. It was an absolute pleasure working with Amani.
If you'd like to race the New York City Marathon next year, registration is already open! TrainingPeaks is the official training plan for the race, so if you need help getting to the starting line, check out the training plans in our store.
Congrats to Amani, Chris, Jeremy and all the NYC Marathon finishers!
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