"my school's track team" extracurricular activities

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!

Cool phrase... I have never heard this before...

Replace that comma after the word "obvious" with a colon instead:
...obvious: running hurts.

I'll add a comma below. Use commas for compound sentences:
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.

You wrote this in a great way!! But yes, you gave a weak last sentence. Cut that last sentence! Replace it with an insight that comes to mind in the middle of the night when you are trying to get to sleep, and you get up and run to the computer because it is the perfect way to express the value of that state of mind you learned during those running meditations.