Name: Sherin Shanahan
Age: 45
Occupation: Special Education Teacher
Relationship Status: In a relationship and living with Scott Robertson
Well, when Lou LaFleur asked me to do this, my first reaction was that I didn’t feel like I’ve been doing this long enough to have much to share. Just really didn’t feel deserving of it quite honestly. However, I didn’t tell him that! Well, until now anyway! My second thought was, eh… what the heck! Stranger things have happened! So here I am!
I guess I need to share a bit about myself. I grew up in Miller Place and graduated from Miller Place High School in 1989. It was, and still is, a small town and there weren’t nearly as many shopping centers along 25a as there are now. I grew up on a street where my backyard butted up against the sod farm, which gave me an endless back yard of my own. Many football, baseball, kickball games and just general running around with the neighborhood kids was a large part of my childhood. While I have a large family, my father is one of 13 children, I had many aunts, uncles and plenty of cousins. However, my dad is from Newfoundland, Canada so I really only saw them on vacations there in the summer or if relatives came down to visit us. Some family moved to the Toronto area so I saw those family members more often. This gave me a very different frame of reference than other kids had growing up. My trips to Newfoundland in the 70’s and 80’s were very different summer vacations then what most kids in school had when I was growing up. Lots of farms, outhouses and just simple way of life. It was fun as a kid, considered boring in my teenage years, but I’m thankful for the experiences it gave me. I often miss those days!
I went to Marshall University, yes… the one from the movie, We Are Marshall. I studied speech pathology. After graduation I was engaged and moved home. I was hired as a speech therapist at Rocky Point school district and worked at the elementary school. I got my Master’s Degree in Special Education at Dowling College. A few years later when a special education position opened at my district I went for it and got it. At that time we had a Junior-Senior High School, grades 7-12. I taught 7th grade and stayed in the high school from 1998 until about 2010. I now teach Special Education at the Middle School. I love my job! I know not many people can say that, so I’m appreciative of it.
I have two beautiful daughters, Caitlin and MacKenzie. Both are athletic and play Lacrosse in college. Caitlin is a junior and MacKenzie is a freshman. So yes, I’m riding the tuition train right now.. CA-CHING!!!! But it’s all good!
So was I always a runner? Hell no! As a matter of fact I hated running! During college I did become a gym rat and always did whatever workout was all the rage at the time. Aerobics, step aerobics, kick-boxing, etc. I always tried to stay in shape by working out. Of course there were years of having babies, working while having babies, all kinds of things that would get in the way, but I always circled back to trying to stay fit. In my mid twenties I decided to give running a try and I ran on my own just to workout when my kids were little and I didn’t have time to go to the gym. I did this on and off over the years and learned to like running, but did not stick with it consistently. I also knew nothing about keeping a pace, running groups, or anything at all really. As the years went on I developed tendonitis/arthritis in my ankles and stopped running. Got very hooked on hot yoga and did that several times per week.
My life took what I like to call a major “plot twist” in 2013 when my marriage ended. Major changes took place due to that. After a year and a half I was living in an apartment in Coram and trying to move on with my life. My schedule was preventing me from getting to hot yoga so I started running again and my ankle felt fine! So I worked my way up to 3 miles, then 5 miles. That was when I ran into Nyree Roviello-Meadows at a football game. Her and I worked together for many years and I always enjoyed hearing her talk about her race experiences and stuff. I told her I started running and was up to 5 miles. She told me I should do the Brewery Run. I asked her how far it was. When she told me 10 miles I looked at her like she had 5 heads and said there was no way I could ever do that! She assured me I would be fine. So I signed up. Then she invited me to a group run at the Greenway and I loved it! Next thing you know she gets me to run the hills on Christmas Eve 2015. I was nervous because I thought I would die… but I made it! So the Brewery Run was my first race and I was hooked! After that I did Caumsette 25K, Kings Park 15K, Scotland 10K, and the Bridgehampton Half. Next was Rehoboth Half and now I’ve signed up for my first full Marathon, The Wineglass Marathon. I do love wine!
So while I haven’t been involved in all of this for very long, a lot has been packed into the last year, most of which I will share with you throughout the week, as I’ve already written a book here. And this morning while running with April Matarasso Rosequist I told her I’d be keeping my posts short! Well, there went that! My apologies!
#thankfulforrunning