I hate running, exercising and sweating! I can tolerate about 10 seconds of self-inflicted jogging, then I'm completely out of breath. It's not that I can't run, because I admit that I'm fast, but the issue is that I cannot run far, at all.

Other than cheerleading (which I absolutely love), I am not the most athletic person. I've always hated running and even the thought of purposely putting myself through such sweaty torture made me tired. Except, I found out that, even though I don't love running, I certainly can't say I hate it either.

Ironically, this year I decided I wanted to get into shape and the best way I thought might work, rather than half-heartedly forcing myself to go to the gym, was to join the varsity track team at my school. I needed someone to push me harder and harder, to keep me motivated to stick to a work out routine. So, I thought track would be the perfect solution because I would have to do what my coach said.

A friend of mine was on the track team and convinced me sign up! The day I signed up, I became so nervous about the distance running that I assumed I could never do!

I admit, the first practice of mine was rough. I couldn't run the warm up (I wanted to quit after 2 seconds), and to make matters worse, that first day was, of course, the day we did long distance running. I kept asking myself, "why can't we do sprints?!"

To say day one was horrible would be an incredible understatement; I've never felt so humiliated and tired in my life.

But even after my first traumatizing practice, I kept going. My motto was, "every day the running will get easier, and I'll get used to it... I just have to keep going!" My motto became the mantra that kept me going.

I never placed in first or second during meets and my time wasn't as fast as everyone else's, but it was good for me! I was improving each day.

I can remember running in one of the Invitationals as the scariest thing of my life. Rather than running against two other schools in a duel meet, as we usually did, we were running against 30 other schools. I was intimidated by the other runners and everything felt so official.

I was so nervous and thought I wouldn't be able to run in front of anyone, but there I was, already on my turn to run. I wanted to run as fast as I could so the race would end quicker and as they yelled, "on your marks, get set", I reminded myself that it was my time to prove to just me how hard I worked and run as fast as possible for me. The shot of the gun burst loud and clear to tell racers and spectators that it was time for us to go.

I was behind everyone in my heat and clearly looked like the odd one out, but I kept going and going and didn't stop.

I finished in last, but I hit my first personal record of the season. I decreased my time by TWO SECONDS! For those of you who don't run track, two seconds is a long time to shave off and it felt like a major accomplishment. My coach and teammates were so proud of me, and I was too.

From that day on, I was more motivated than ever to keep improving. I tried harder in practice and at the next meet I hit another PR, by .2 seconds.

Track is coming to a close and I ran in my last meet of my high school career, since I'm a senior.

My first and last season of a sport I never thought I could follow through with actually turned out to be a blast! I didn't believe I could enjoy running so much, and while I don't necessarily love running I have to admit, I did have fun with running because of my team and the progress I made. Of course, there were days when we didn't want to go to practice so that we could bond over other activities that didn't involve running, but my teammates made practice worth showing up for.

I've never been on a team with people as encouraging as my track mates. At first, I went into this thinking I would be judged and made fun of, but I am so glad I was wrong. I would constantly hear an encouraging, "you got this," before running in a meet, and the distant voices of my teammates cheering me on to "keep going!"

My team encouraged me to try harder each time I ran and to just do my best. With them believing in me, I began to believe in myself.

I'm sad to say I won't be running in any meets next year because I will be moving on to college, but I had the best experience pushing myself to try something I thought I absolutely hated and to change my attitude about running just a little. I didn't expect to enjoy running and racing against people who had a passion for the sport, but I surprised myself in a way I never thought I would.

Without my amazing teammates and coaches, I would not have been able to push through and accomplish a task I set out to complete!