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He moved to the US from Karachi when he was 13 years old. Now, at the age of 38, he is rewriting his career from being a retail business owner for cell phones to professional coaching for marathon runners - an unusual change of careers.
A resident of Houston, Nizar Nayani’s passion for fitness was motivated by his desire to revamp his health and strive for a stronger core strength-training lifestyle. Passion slowly transpired into a vision to coach athletes to achieve their goals for the distant running of half-marathon, full marathon, and ultra-marathon. Full marathon requires core strength endurance for a span of 26.2 miles, whereas ultramarathons require 50 to 100 miles runs.
Nizar participates in two to three marathons a year, and enduring pain is a part of the sport. He has to ensure he is in the right physical and mental shape before a long run, which involves rest time, “listening to my body, checking the mileage on his shoes during training and race day (don't overuse them), having the right diet, massages, adequate sleep, and cross-training to make the muscles stronger.” He admits that despite these precautions, he has had several injuries during the season, and recovery periods are important after each run.
Running is essentially an aerobic sport that requires great endurance, physical and mental, to overcome the pain felt during a long run. As a member of Running Club 1104, Nizar provides individual coaching strategies to eight individuals who subscribe to his services via app and online membership. As a coach, he trains others based on their heart rate, building endurance capacity for each of his members. A weekly regimen is created for runners, and their data is uploaded for Nizar to review. Based on performance, plans are adjusted to increase desired goals.
Nizar has won several awards during his past few years, placing second in a 5-kilometer race, and has been 1st in the AKF run and in the Sugar Land 10K run. He has been running in the Houston Marathon for seven years and is "Sub3," meaning has finished in less than three hours, a difficult accomplishment. Participation in the Boston Marathon was based on Nizar's qualification from the Chicago Marathon, which he achieved in two hours and 56 minutes. His training includes running 65 to 70 miles a week.
As a coach and a mentor, Nizar's ultimate holy grail is to run in the six major world marathons. He has completed runs in New York, Chicago, London, and Berlin. The two remaining ones are Tokyo, where he will run in two weeks, and Boston in April 2025.
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Over the past year, Nizar has earned his USA fit track and field course certification, which enables him to coach in the USA and Canada.
For the past two years, and following a car accident, Nizar took up long-distance bicycling as well. He was responsible for creating a team within the Southwest region for MS150- Multiple Sclerosis, a sponsored initiative by the Aga Khan Foundation. he has trained over 100 participants from 14-61 years of age for the two-day event, from Houston to Austin, covering 160 miles. Currently, there are 72 AKF cycling members in the team. When he is not running, Nizar loves to bike and fly non-commercial planes.
