Saturday Spotlight!!
Name: Tim Casey
Age: 32, or as I like to call it, 29 for the fourth time
Marital Status: Single, mingling
Kids: None yet
Pets: None at the moment, debating if I want a West Highland White Terrier or an American Staffordshire Terrier…or both. I’ve had three Westies previously.
Occupation: Quality Assurance Coach at Nature’s Bounty
Hobbies: cooking, reading non-fiction, watching the Jets, Islanders, Knicks, Yankees, NYCFC and Liverpool, finding and sharing memes, CROSSFIT…oh and RUNNING!
Hometown: Coram, NY
Current Town: Coram, NY
College: Mount Saint Mary College (Newburgh, NY)
Favorite Race: Corporate 5K at Bethpage Ballpark/Nissequoque Turkey Trot
Thank you to Lou for asking me to be the Warrior of the Week. When he messaged me and asked me I was very surprised, as I haven’t been to this Hills since the beginning of the quarantine. This is because I know I will get lost on my own! Needless to say I am appreciative and flattered.
I’m still running around the neighborhood multiple times a week and practicing on improving my running form and speed. Specifically doing sprint training now in addition to running a 10K two-three times per week. I’ve also become a bit of a sneaker addict during the quarantine and have taken a sort of Noah’s Ark approach to buying sneakers-two pairs of running shoes, two pairs of Crossfit shoes, two pairs of Jordan runners, etc. Anyways, my story…
I was never a runner growing up. As a matter of fact, I was probably the least athletic person on the planet. I used to be that kid who couldn’t run more than 1/10th of a mile without getting winded and I would be the last person to finish the mile run in Phys Ed. because I couldn’t run without getting winded. Fast forward some years later to my Junior year in college in 2009-I was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a basketball lodged in between my chest and my lungs. Thankfully, it turned out to be benign and was removed and I’ve remained relatively healthy to this day, knock on wood. That would certainly account for some of the troubles with running any distance though. With that said, I still didn’t really take up running until about five years later. I started a job as an Account Executive with the New York Cosmos Soccer Team and was promptly told I’d be signing up to run in a Corporate 5K. After some initial hesitance, I began training on the treadmill at the Carle Place Planet Fitness in the cold winter of 2015. Starting with just a quarter of a mile, I worked myself up to be able to run 3.1 miles without stopping in time for the race in July 2015. In that time, I discovered that I loved running and it became something I did both for leisure and for the joy of racing. As the years went by, my father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and my mom with terminal bone cancer. As the only child and primary caretaker, running became my favorite thing to do in my free time, both to decompress and to celebrate the joy that I get from running. I slowly worked my way up from 3.1 miles, to 4 miles, to 5 miles, to my now current average run of 6.2 miles around the neighborhood. For those of you that can see my run maps on Facebook, I never set out to run a route that looks like a middle finger, it just turned out that way and happens to be the most direct route of 6.2 miles from door-to-door.
My dad passed away in August of 2016 and my mom in November of 2018. During and after that time, running continued to be my favorite pastime along with watching the Jets, Knicks, Islanders and Yankees and spending time with friends and family. In February of 2019, I got into Crossfit, as I was looking to improve my running speed and strength and build upper body strength. I joined a gym and met Jess Kim who convinced me to come run the Hills. Since then, I’ve run 400 miles in a year for the first time ever and I’ll celebrate my one-year hillaversary on June 19th and and first Slaughterversary next February 12th. Happy and grateful to be part of such an amazing group of people and I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming week!