Steve Thoma ’92 placed first in the 55–59 age group in last year’s New York City Marathon. Was it all because he picked the right shoe? 

On the eve of running the 2025 New York City Marathon, Thoma, a Colorado Springs independent stock trader, was torn between wearing his brand-new Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3s or his only slightly older Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 4s. Thoma, 55, chose the former—and ended up coming in first out of more than 3,800 finishers in his age category, with a time of 2:40:50. He also became the new Marathon World Champion in that age bracket.

Thoma started running competitively in 2018. When he moved from Montana to Colorado he decided to run Denver’s Colfax Marathon “for the heck of it,” qualifying for the Boston Marathon that same year. He ended up running six Bostons in a row, each faster than the last, as well as marathons in Chicago, Sydney, Berlin, and outside Seattle.

Thoma plans to run all the World Majors in the coming years, including Tokyo, Cape Town, and London. “I’m pretty religious, and when I run marathons, I say prayers almost the entire time,” he said.