Saturday Spotlight- Nicole Ferrara

Hey Everyone!!

For those who I haven’t met yet, I’m Nikki. Excited to be this weeks warrior of the week!….Alright so I am supposed to talk about myself today, something I am not the greatest at doing so I will give this a shot.

I grew up here on Long Island, Went to Connetquot High School, Suffolk Community College and St. John’s University. I currently work at Southside Hospital as a Cat Scan and MRI technologist. I spent just about 10 years volunteering at Community Ambulance Company in Sayville as an EMT where I fell in love with the health field, eventually finding my way into Peconic Bay Medical Center’s X-ray program in 2010.

I currently reside in Patchogue with my dog Meeka 🙂

I grew up always playing sports, from field hockey to basketball to softball. Some how always finding positions that required the least amount of running such as goalie, or catcher, which I find so funny now. I was always very athletic until I had graduated college. I found myself like everyone else, getting very comfortable with life, work, and being in a long term relationship. You hear stories about how people lose themselves in a relationship, well here I am. My running story has a lot to do with that, I was in a long term, unhealthy mentally abusive relationship in my mid 20’s where I completely lost the person I was, including gaining a ton of weight. Long story short, after 6 years the relationship ended. During the most difficult times and after it ending I turned to running. It all changed one day when I went to bend over to tie my shoe and I became out of breath. I sat there and thought to myself what the fuck are you doing. (excuse me) But seriously, you are in your late 20s and this is how you are spending your life?? I then turned to running as a de stressor on top of being something that would come to help me lose weight and completely change my life. Like anyone else I started small, all I wanted to do was run my ambulance company’s 5k run, so I started to run…. well, walk/run. I completed that run, and from there on out I continued to set goals. I ran a 10K and went on to run my first half marathon. Now I am proud to say I have run numerous half marathons and I was lucky enough to run 2 full marathons, one of which being the NYC marathon in 2016, which was one of the best days of my life. I am thankful for the ability to run and continue to do it as many times a week as I can fit in to my busy schedule. It is the only thing that helps clear my mind and I am proud to say has aided in the goal of losing over 100lbs.

I joined team Selden hills last year so I can meet people who have the same love that I do, and I love hearing everyones stories. Hope to see everyone out at running events soon as the nice weather approaches !