Congrats to the 2024 BSWD scholarship recipients!
Each year, Big Sky Wind Drinkers present 3-4 scholarships to promising young athletes in the Gallatin Valley. Big congrats to this year’s winners: Emma Konen (Twin Bridges High), Nomi Friedman (Bozeman High), Hannah Giese (Belgrade High) and Kimball Smith (Park High). Big thanks to our scholarship committee, Kristin Harbuck, Patrick Hatfield, Mark Genito and Ethan Brown.
Each student has given us permission to publish their personal essay below – enjoy!
Nomi Friedman – Bozeman High
As my alarm goes off and I shift my eyes from side to side I can feel a deep, throbbing pain inside my head. It’s four in the morning and I’m huddled inside my sleeping bag, the only thing below me is a damp tarp and the only thing above is the stars still in the sky. I take a deep breath in hopes of halting the welling tears from pouring out. ‘Nomi. Do not be such a baby,’ I chide myself. I kick out my legs, feeling my muscles twinge as they make contact with the cold part of my sleeping bag that’s been denied any body heat. I slowly sit up, gulping in frigid air. Today is day 3 of the Headwaters Relay, a 220 mile running relay through the Gravelly Mountains. In the days prior I had logged 18 miles all at paces faster than I’d run so far that summer. My legs hurt to touch, my arches are home to two incredibly tender blisters, and my mental fortitude is being tested like never before.
I pull myself from my sleeping bag and put on my shoes so I can walk a couple hundred feet to go to the bathroom. I squat down in time to hear a crack in the branch I had placed my foot on. My foot falls to the ground and my entire body follows suit. Tears well, my head pounds, and it takes absolutely everything in me to keep my eyes open. ‘Nomi, you’re okay. You got this. Get up,’ the internal voice instructs me. I place my palms on the cold dirt and push myself back up, go to the bathroom, and head back to camp.
We fold up the tarp, shovel cinnamon apple oatmeal into our mouths, and pile into the truck, heading to the start of my leg. As we rumble down the road I can just barely see the sun poking up from behind the hillside. I watch the light trace its way through the clouds and a smile creeps across my face. I try to put into perspective what I’m doing. I get to wake up next to my best friends, run all day through the mountains, and be lulled to sleep by the hush of a quiet wind. I have a body that is strong and a mind that’s even stronger and here I am doing what I love.
That day I ran ten and a half miles and finished the relay with my team. That weekend showed me how strong I could be in the face of both an extreme mental and physical challenge. It pushed me deep into the pain cave, secluded me to just my thoughts, and allowed me to see how truly capable I am.
To me, that’s what running is all about. No other activity pushes you to your absolute limit while still allowing you to do what you love the most. Running has given me my favorite sport, my best friends, and an unbridled appreciation for being alive. I know when I show up to practice I will be greeted by the smiles of my teammates, a witty joke from Coach Casey, and just a couple anxious butterflies as I start to warm up for hard intervals.
So, when asked what running means to me, I believe it’s not the times, the races, or the splits, but rather the community, the grit, and the smiles that are direct results of the time we spend pushing ourselves to be stronger. I will forever cherish the memories I’ve made during my career as a Hawk, and I will never stop pursuing the joy I get from going out on a run.
Kimball Smith – Park High
Running holds a special place in my heart, far beyond just putting one foot in front of the other. To me, running is a way of life, a journey filled with challenges, pushing yourlimits, triumphs, self-discovery, and connecting with a community. It all began as a littlechild; in my family we have a tradition called the Smith Family Marathon. Every year since I was two years old my dad has run an independent self-supported marathon from out thefront door of our house. Our job as kids was to cheer for him as loud as we could along theway. We always had a finish line across our driveway and made him a finishers metal. AsI’ve grown older and began to run alongside him, I’ve noticed how much commitment thistradition has required for my dad. Over the years the family marathon has evolved toinclude most of the family for some distance of the run. One memory I have was when mydad and I drove 26.2 miles up a dusty dirt road in the farm hills above our ranch and ranback to the cabin. At the end of the run, I asked him why he does it. He said, “the reasoncontinue to do this tradition is to show you kids that you can do hard things.” This struckme as he is nearing 50 years old. My dad has always led by his example and has inspiredme to do hard things.
What Running Means to Me
It was the day of the time trial. I warmed up with the rest of the girls’ team, and found that I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I might be. After all, I was just a freshman. No one expected anything from me, there was no pressure to perform well. I lined up, closer to the back of the pack, at the makeshift start line. Our coach gave us the “Go!” command, and we took off. Instantly I felt like I could go faster, so I squeezed through the group in front of me and found myself directly behind a couple of seniors who were in the front. I knew I could run faster than this, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to pass the upperclassmen. After a few seconds, I decided to pass them and ended up finishing the time trial in first place. I was shocked! At most, I had been hoping to run in the sixth or seventh varsity position at the first meet, but here I was leading the team!
By the middle of winter freshman year, I was putting in more mileage than I thought possible, and I was loving it. Then I lost it all. I suffered a severe partial tear in my right calf due to overuse. For weeks I could barely walk, let alone run, and by the time track season rolled around (almost 3 months later) I still was unable to run. Running was something that I had always taken for granted, until it was suddenly stripped away. My mental health began to suffer severely, and I realized that running had been a form of therapy as much as it was a sport. Running was an escape, it gave me freedom. It also allowed me to push the limits of my determination and perseverance as I strove to recover in time to race at the last few meets of the season. I held a new appreciation for every run and every step in my recovery.
Over the next two years, I lost sight of running as a form of freedom. I became blinded by my goals and the pressure that I felt from everyone around me. It came from my parents, my coaches, my teammates, my teachers. But most of all, it came from myself. I was expected to continue leading the team and PRing in races, and so I did, until at the end of my junior year I earned All-State Honors at the AA State Cross Country Meet. Of course, I was thrilled. But at the same time I knew I couldn’t race another season the same way I had the last three years. I was mentally exhausted, and each race caused an immense amount of anxiety that I would let people down. For a while, I stopped running entirely. I didn’t attend winter training or participate in the next track season. I was scared to run again. Running had changed from something that lessened my anxiety and had become the main source of my anxiety. I missed the freedom that running had once brought, but I was afraid that if I started running again it would no longer bring the same freedom that it once had.
Finally, during the summer before my senior year, I decided that I didn’t want to give up on running. It had been one of the biggest parts of my life for seven years, and I didn’t want to lose it forever. I started running again, with the sole goal of developing a lifelong love for it. I went on countless trail runs, and decided to return for a final cross country season. Although I didn’t race much due to injury, I will never regret that I came back to running. I am learning to appreciate running without any pressure to PR or to set ambitious goals. To me, running is a way to escape, to find new adventures, and to discover more about myself. To me, running is freedom.
Growing up on a small ranch as the youngest of five siblings, I was constantly running. I loved the feeling of the wind against my face as I chased my brothers through the fields or as I played with the cow dogs and pigs. As I got older this love continued as sports engulfed my life, every day I was running down the basketball court or around the track, it was something that I found a passion for and put all of my efforts into until everything changed. Junior year at the State Track meet, I charged down the final stretch as the anchor of the 4x400m relay, pushing my body to its limits. As I was fighting to get a breath of air into my lungs, darkness encroached on my vision, but I willed my legs to carry me forward until I collapsed across the finish line. This episode wasn’t an isolated incident; it was just the climax of a struggle that began months earlier.
It all started in November, during basketball practice, when I noticed a disturbing feeling when doing basic conditioning, a feeling as if I breathing through a straw. Hoping for a quick fix of an inhaler, I sought help from a local doctor, only to leave with a note banning me from exercise and no answers. As a three-sport All-State athlete with hopes of competing at the college level, this was dream-crushing news. I sought help from many other doctors around the state who were also unable to give me a diagnosis and waved it off as long-term COVID-19. After returning to sports, the mental toll of being unable to compete at my full potential weighed heavily on me, but I refused to surrender to these negative thoughts that wanted me to give up on my dreams. Determined to find answers, I embarked on a journey that led me to The National Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado.
There, amidst rigorous physically and mentally demanding testing, I received a diagnosis that explained my problem: Exercise-Induced Laryngeal Obstruction (EILO), a rare condition that makes breathing nine to sixteen times more challenging during exertion, taking precious energy and oxygen from my lungs, muscles, and brain. After my diagnosis, while still at National Jewish, I began the meticulous process of relearning how to breathe efficiently while maintaining high levels of activity.
As I approach my Senior year of track, I am filled with gratitude for EILO. Despite the setbacks caused by EILO, I’ve embraced the challenge and signed to run collegiate track and play basketball at Montana Tech. My perspective on running has undergone a profound transformation. What was once perceived as punishment or a dreaded chore has become a source of profound appreciation. EILO has taught me not to take anything for granted, especially the simple act of breathing. Through adversity, I’ve discovered resilience and a deeper connection to my faith.
Running, to me, embodies freedom—a liberation from the burdens that weigh me down. With each stride, I feel the weight of my worries lift, leaving me empowered and invigorated. I am reminded of the verse from Isaiah 40:31: “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” My journey with EILO has strengthened my faith and reaffirmed my belief that I run not just by my own strength, but by the grace and faithfulness of God. I know that every time I step into my blocks, with the power of God in me, nothing can stop me, not even EILO.
