The morning announcements may advertise the Emmaus Marine Fitness Team as an extracurricular to “get fit with your friends,” but that was not even close to my realm of reason when I first joined in April 2021. In fact, my motivation was probably much more superficial than what the coaches had in mind for new members. 

I joined so I could judge my friend’s crush. 

Now, it’s a complicated story, so I’m just going to give a Sparknotes summary. She kept telling me about this guy at fitness that she thought she had a crush on, and I’m a naturally nosy person. The hybrid and online model of classes made it so that I never saw who this mystery man was, so my only option was to go to a fitness team meet.

My first ever fitness meet was, to put it lightly, not my best moment. Not only did her crush strike me as an arrogant, flirtatious a**hole, but the workouts were also incredibly brutal. In terms of physical adeptness, I’d say I was in the middle — not a gym rat, but also not a complete couch potato. But this hour and a half of physical movement felt like absolute hell. My throat burned, I couldn’t catch my breath, and worst of all: so much running. There was an abundance of running involved, packaged with different little titles in a feeble attempt to make it more palatable.

It was probably Stockholm Syndrome that compelled me to keep coming back each Friday afternoon. It definitely was not talent. My dislike of running held me back from giving my full effort, and I consistently felt like I was going to drop dead from exercise. But as time went on, something started to shift in my brain. It was weird — it started to feel good to kill myself with this extensive exercise at the end of my weeks. As the great Elle Woods once said: “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.”

 And, endorphins I got. 

Even though I did hybrid schooling, I still found myself sitting solitary at my desk for the majority of my time. So, it felt good to have a scheduled block of time purely meant for outdoor body movement. I also started to take exercise more seriously and pushed myself more extensively. My experiences empowered me to take new ventures with my at-home workouts, incorporating weights and stretches beforehand and afterward.

As I enter my second and last year as a fitness team member, I intend to take full advantage of the opportunities and keep pushing myself to my best potential. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I’ll be able to do two pull-ups.