Undergraduate / "my school's track team" extracurricular activities [2]

I hope this isn't too cookie cutter or short. My actual essay was alot longer, but I suffered severe writers block while writing this haha..

For the past couple years I participated on my school's track team. Freshmen year, when I started, I had no idea what I was getting into. After my first practice I realized it wasn't going to be all fun and games, monkeys and rainbows. I came to the realization of something blaringly obvious, running hurts, a lot. Why run myself to near exhaustion every day and why willingly go to a place where you will experience pain? Out first, I couldn't see the point. But on some runs or during some workouts I would experience a very peculiar state of mind. My body would be under considerable stress yet I learned how to keep my mind calm as a cup of water. I learned how to quash those thoughts of capitulation and just keep running. Through that pain, I managed to learn a lot about myself. I learned that winning was not truly my motivation. (Though I surely didn't complain when I did!) It was to prove to myself that I could stick through with it, even when times were tough.

Thanks in advanced!