“If you would’ve told me a year ago that I would have ups and downs with running and severely struggle with OCD, but at the end of that year I’d be thriving and back running, I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle it. Even though I still have some things to work out, I’m getting there. But I think the best part of all of this has been that it has helped me mature in so many ways and has made me such a better person.”
Rewind. Meet Nick Raefski. To the untrained eye, he’s a normal college student: trying to decide on a major, sharing laughs with his roommate, keeping up with cross country and track practices, and hitting the omelet line at the Pit. What you don’t know is he’s also producing a movie and designing his own clothing line to support mental health awareneness.
“Running has always just kind of been something I’ve done. It’s a point of self-definition for me,” said Raefski. To Nick, running is a source of relaxation and enjoyment. Some of his best Wake Forest memories have come from traveling with the team and having the opportunity to work with people from unique backgrounds who all share the same goals.
The transition from high school running to collegiate meets was a big one, and one that brought new challenges to overcome. “Traveling and racing in a new element and at a college level is so different. It put a lot pressure on me and eventually, I got injured. That physical snap was kind of my mental snap, too,” he said.
Picture Howard Hughes in the aviator; Nick’s goal-driven personality escalated to obsessive as his runner-identity slipped from his grasp, and he began struggling with OCD. His process of regaining his physical and mental health brought him home to High Bridge, New Jersey, where he ended up starting a social media production firm called Strictly Original. Nick and his team were hired by a nonprofit to produce a 12-minute documentary on marijuana usage and its role in American culture.
Cue a montage of a summer full of travel and interviews to today. The documentary has wrapped, but the now production and creativity firm is far from done. Filming begins again when Nick gets home for Thanksgiving break to start work on a 45-minute feature-film for a deeper look on marijuana usage in our society. “I have no formal training in producing, but I think it’s something that you have to be thrown in to know if you’ll float or sink. Running is so structured- and I love that about running- but this is teaching me to be more flexible and use a whole new skill set and creativity.”
Pause, remember that clothing line we mentioned before? On top of producing and assistant directing a movie, Nick is channeling his newfound creativity into designing his own clothing line to support mental health awareness. In high school, he was involved with running a non-profit called Together We Are One. “I thought about starting a non-profit when I got back to Wake, but I just felt like it was something I’d already done.” So what’s a guy to do? Start a fashion line. Nick’s hobby of making clothes for himself and love for fashion evolved into a clothing line called Freshman Year. If it gets picked up, part of the proceeds on all sales will go to mental health awareness. “It’s my take on the ups and downs of my freshman year both with mental health and the loss of some of the people closest to me because of mental health issues.”
Don’t worry collegiettes, at this point, we were also asking ourselves how he manages to find this much time in the day. His response? “How do you not? If I don’t have all of these things in my life, I feel like I wouldn’t be as balanced. Now I don’t just define myself as a runner. I feel like a much more complete person and a better person because of all of it.”
With such a diverse resume, you must be dying to know what lies ahead for Nick. And from the sound of it, so is he. “Planning is great, but there are some things you just can’t plan for. Right now I’m just trying to live in the moment and take everything in. I have so many things I want to do in this lifetime, and I’m not sure how I’m going to do all of them, but at the end of the day I just want to be happy no matter what I end up in.”
Photos courtesy of Nick Raefski