I’m in the midst of the single hardest semester of my life. In fact, I really don’t even have time to be writing this article, as I’m a little behind on my work for the week. My classes are great, but it’s a much heavier workload than I’ve had before, and the later nights, grueling readings, and fast-approaching, never-ending deadlines really start to take a toll.

On top of that, it’s track season, which means I’m traveling almost every weekend and am losing critical study hours. Not only that, this means that I’m tired physically in addition to mentally.

Now, quitting track has never and will never come to my mind, because I love the sport and my teammates and they are a huge source of happiness for me. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t found myself complaining recently about there not being enough hours in the day for everything.

I’ve always firmly believed that I’m a better student because I do track. It’s a refreshing break in my day. It teaches me time management, discipline, and all the other cliché skills that student-athletes are supposed to tout on their resumes. However, I have recently realized that doing track primarily helps me to be a better student because I’m on a team.

This past weekend, we had our first outdoor track meet, and it went very well. Everyone had solid starts to the season, there were a bunch of personal bests, and a couple of people even placed first in their events. My event was second to last, so I had the grueling situation of sitting around all day waiting for it to be my turn. What made it easier though was that I watched everyone else compete so well, that it made me want to run well, and then I did. Of course, I always want to run well, but my teammates gave me an added motivation that was unparalleled.

That sort of wordless encouragement is the crucial component of any successful track team. Even in practice, when the workouts are tough, just knowing that everyone else is working just as hard, if not harder, is always enough to push oneself to keep going. This is why track will always be so much more than an individual sport.

I’ve known this for a while, but I’m writing this now because my team has translated that environment from the track to the library this semester in particular, and it has been my saving grace. We have taken over a study room on the 5^th floor of the library and every night, and especially on Sundays, we fill the room to capacity and work for hours upon hours. In fact, we’re in the study room right now as I’m writing this article.

I really don’t think I’d have the energy to complete all my work if I were unable to feed off the (usually) silent energy of my teammates working around me. While the library itself is a superconductor of people hard at work (most of the time), there’s something more powerful about being surrounded by close friends- teammates- instead of merely peers.

I would have never guessed that being on a collegiate track team would be the greatest boon to my academic success, but it has been. I hope I am always able to affiliate myself with hard-working people amongst whom I can be hard-working as painlessly as possible.