Like my coach always said, track and field has rules that you can easily apply to your life, and that’s exactly what I did. Though it may have annoyed me at the time when I ran in a race and my coach reminded me of these things from the sidelines, looking back on it, I had great times and I was a part of a team that pushed me further than I could’ve ever gone alone. Here are the five biggest life lessons I learned from track and field.

1. No matter how much you’re hurting, it can always get worse.

No matter what ridiculous workout the coach put us through, he always reminded us that we could do it 10 more times if he wanted us to. Sometimes he did, and we didn’t realize how much we could run or jump on command like that; we didn’t realize how fast we could sprint when we were beyond exhaustion. There were sometimes, however, he didn’t make us stay for extra practice and he said the glorious words, “See you tomorrow,” and though we knew we could’ve run longer and harder if he asked, we were thankful we didn’t have to anyway.

2. It gets easier down the road.

When you’re running through the woods, on the track, or in the street, the pain always seems to ease up at some point. The initial pain of running turns into a runner’s high and at this point, it actually seems like it will be more painful to stop than to just keep going. In the beginning you set goals for yourself like, “OK, I’ll run to the next lamppost,” but then you keep pushing the goal further and further ahead of you. The more you run, the more you don’t want to stop. It helps to focus on the ground in front of you, taking one step at a time, instead of looking ahead at how much further you have to run before it’s over.

3. Always prepare.

Preparation for practice is always important. Not only am I talking about stretching and warming up, which is extremely important, but I’m also talking about prepping for the unpredictable weather of the Northeast. At any time, you could be running through the rain, hail, slush, snow, lightning, thunder, fog, earthquake, tornado, 90 degree weather and 100 percent humidity, or -2 degree weather. Prepare for any weather, no matter what the news forecast says. Expect the mailmen and women to stop delivering and go home before we do.

4. It’s never as bad as you think it will be.

No matter how much you don’t want to run that 800 your coach just said you’re running at the next meet, you do it anyway. You don’t let the anxiety of thinking about it too much get to you. You wrap your head around the idea, and when the time comes, you just do it. By the time it’s over, it wasn’t as bad as you initially thought.

5. Teammates are always there for you.

You know your teammates are always there for you, whether they throw, jump, sprint, or run long distance. Everybody’s different, but in the end, everybody just wants their teammate to finish the race, because we all support each other.