David Casey
Age: 38
Residence: Burlington
Occupation: State Workers’ Compensation Specialist
Family: Partner, Jennifer Miller
Primary Sport: Nordic skiing
and Jennifer Miller
Age: 34
Residence: Burlington
Occupation: Employee
Benefits Administrator
Family: Partner, David Casey
Primary Sport: Triathlon
VST: How did you meet?
JM: David was working in the Department of Employment and Training and I would go by to use the resource center. It was my birthday, and I wanted to go out to lunch, so I asked him to join me. We became friends and would go for hikes or skating, and, well, one thing led to another.
VST: How did meeting each other affect each of your athletic careers?
DC: Jennifer definitely enhanced my athletic career. Being with someone who likes to do the same activities as you is great. Former partners were athletes but not competitive. I hope I never put pressure on Jennifer to compete or have any hopes or expectations that she race. I think Jennifer already had the interest, and hopefully I fostered it.
JM: David introduced me to running road races and triathlons. I played field hockey in high school and college and I figure-skated, but after college I didn’t compete. I just ran and hiked for the enjoyment of being outdoors and staying in shape. The first race I ever attended was the 1995 Vermont City Marathon, to watch David. It was amazing. There was so much excitement, and I was so impressed that these people could run 26.2 miles. I showed up after being out partying late the night before. I saw the race and decided, “I want to do that.” But I didn’t make the commitment and start training until six months later. A year after watching David, I ran my first marathon.
VST: Why do you compete?
DC: It’s fun. Competition helps me to focus. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and it enables me to identify something I do better than others. I derive some self-worth from it. It’s an ego boost. It sets me apart from the crowd.
JM: Racing is even better than spectating. I had more energy after running my first marathon than I did the year before, watching it after a night of partying. I had an incredible feeling of accomplishment after my first marathon, and I knew I wanted to do it again.
VST: How does it feel having a partner who competes in some of the same races?
JM: Great, because we can offer each other different perspectives/strategies to approaching the race, as well as encouragement. If David is getting stressed out, I can usually help him put things in perspective. I try to remind him that no matter how fast either of us run, bike, ski, or swim the most important thing to remember is that we’re healthy and can participate in all the activities we both love so much.
VST: Is there competition between you?
JM: Yes. Obviously I’m not as fast as David. He’s bigger and stronger and faster in almost everything. When we go out for a bike ride, I do my best to keep up and to make him work. David will get out front, turn around, and there I am. But in-line skating is the great equalizer. I kick his butt and I take full advantage of the fact I’m faster. I do my best to make it look easy. I’m more efficient, so when we finish David will be sweating and I’m fresh as a daisy.
DC: Plenty of it. It’s really weird for a guy who’s quite fit to try and physically compete against a woman who’s quite fit. I’ve been doing this stuff all my life. Jennifer is newer to it. Comparatively, I’ve done better against other men than she against other women, but that is changing. Jennifer is comparatively stronger cycling against other women.
We’re training partners though, and there is a different dynamic between training partners and competitors. You want to kick your training partners butt, but you want them to kick yours. I love to see Jennifer do well. I would be happy if she gave me no rest ever! With competitors, any athlete with a good attitude wants to see every other athlete do well, but every athlete really wants to do the best.
VST: Do you feel like competing has changed you as a person?
JM: Yes. It has given me more confidence. The fact that I can bike the length of Vermont or run a marathon makes me feel like I can take on anything. Plus, competing gives me a renewed appreciation of how fortunate I am that I can do the things I do, that I’m healthy, that I’m strong, and that I’m capable of taking on big physical challenges.
DC: Athletics has taught me that attitude is critical in everything you do. You learn about yourself. Competition has also provided an outlet for me. As Edward Abbey once said, “Human beings make better hunter-gatherers than clerk-typists.” We all have an animal instinct, a drive towards survival, particularly young guys with lots of testosterone. Competing is a good outlet for that energy.
VST: Do you train together?
JM: David is definitely a training partner. It’s a good thing we both train or otherwise we probably wouldn’t see each other. Both of us have an appreciation of the time training takes and our different sports have the same level of importance for each of us. Also, when it’s time to play we both want to do the same kinds of things. We’d both rather go to bed early and get up at “dark-thirty” to snowshoe up a mountain before work than stay up and party.
VST: What athletic accomplishment are you most proud of?
JM: The 200-100 [200 miles on Route 100]. Riding the length of Vermont on my bike in a day in 1997.
DC: To make it to 38 and still be pretty fast and still be as involved in all the competitive events: running, biking, triathlons, snowshoeing, nordic skiing, mountain bike racing, and swimming.
VST: What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned from each other?
JM: That you are capable of a lot more than you think you are, and the only limits are the ones you set for yourself. Whenever I thought, “I can’t do that,” David would be there saying matter-of-factly, “Sure you can.” He encouraged me to push myself beyond my self-imposed limits. Ski racing is a good example. I didn’t see myself as a ski racer because it’s not something I’ve been doing very long. David went over to New York to do the 50K Lake Placid Loppet. He suggested I try the 25K. I decided, What the heck? It was my first ski race ever and the course went all the way up and over Mt. Van Hovenberg. I finished in the middle of the pack and I had a lot of fun.
DC: Jennifer has such a happy outlook towards life, whereas I’m much more cynical. 99 percent of the time she’s happy and upbeat. In athletic competition, Jennifer takes a much better approach than I do. She is much more able to make it a fun and positive experience, which I think leads to better performance. I tend to be too serious. I get it in my head that I have to do well and it creates a lot of pressure.
VST: What is the stupidest piece of gear you own?
JM: A mudguard for my mountain bike that doesn’t fit.
DC: A metal conveyor belt. I was at Cheese Traders’ end-of-season sale. Mr. Cheese Trader ended up paying me a dime to take a cubic yard of puffed millet off his hands, and I paid him $10 for three cookie sheets and a rolling metal conveyor belt, the kind that’s a sheet of metal with little wheels all the way along it. I was going to make a trainer like Vasa’s to train for swimming and cross-country skiing. It would have worked, but I never got around to finishing it.
VST: What was your most humorous moment in athletics?
JM: I was in a triathlon, doing the run, and as I was passing through a water station I yelled for water. Someone handed me a cup, and I poured the liquid over my head. It turned out to be blue Gatorade and I had sticky blue streaks on my face for the rest of the race. Or maybe my most humorous moment (in retrospect) was the first time I tried in-line skating. It was one of my first dates with David, and I took right to skating. I was a figure skater when I was younger, and in-line skating felt the same. I tried a spiral. After a few seconds the whole skate started shaking and I went down. There was no blood, but I put a hole in my fleece and was quite embarrassed.
DC: Jennifer thinks my most humorous race moment was when I forgot my wetsuit for a triathlon, however I did not think that was funny at all. My most humorous race was a 5K in downtown Burlington. Rick Blount was behind me. I had the lead from the start, but I didn’t know the course. Rick yelled directions to me the whole way, and I won. All he had to do was let me go, and he would have finished first.
VST: How does training fit in with your work?
JM: Work is something I do between workouts. I like to be active in the morning and the evening, and weekends.
DC: I don’t want to have to say my work is what I do between play. I want my job to be play, but I want my work to help people in need in a way that is more than shuffling forms. I’m looking for an interactive, hands-on career. I am hoping to go to medical school.
VST: What sacrifices have you made to be a competitive athlete?
JM: I don’t feel like I’ve made any. I feel like I’ve found myself. I moved to Vermont in the summer of ’94. There are so many things to do outdoors here, I started trying different activities. At the same time I met all kinds of great people.
DC: None. Living my life the way I do is something I chose. By default, my athletic accomplishments reflect my level of training and commitment, which I also I chose. I’m a good athlete, and I’ve wondered how good I could be or could have been give the time and money to train more seriously. But to be an elite athlete you have to put in the homework, and I didn’t. When I graduated from college, athletic activity beyond a two- to three-mile run wasn’t even on my screen.
VST: What do you eat when training and racing?
DC: I feel strongly that we are what we eat, so I try to eat as healthfully as possible. I think about people in my office, what they eat and what I eat. They think I eat super-healthfully because I’m an athlete. I have, however, been known to eat an entire carrot cake. We have a friend who once said it was great to have dinner with uninhibited eaters, and we are. We like to eat. One morning in Quebec City we went for a run in 20F. We probably ran 20 miles in the freezing cold. One of our main motivators was the prospect of gorging ourselves at a very glamorous breakfast buffet where you could eat all 30 desserts if you wanted to. We probably ate 5000 calories each that morning.
VST: Who cooks?
DC: Jennifer has been cooking a lot because I’m a lazy slug, and I’m in school doing pre-med work.
JM: Plus my cooking is more interesting. It usually involves more than two ingredients.
VST: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
JM: Doing the same things I’m doing now. I’d love to be faster. All the sports I do have become an integral part of my life whether or not I’m competing.
DC: On my way towards pursuing a new career, hopefully in the field of medicine. I have a desire to help people in a way that doesn’t involve sitting behind a desk.
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