Photos by Danielle McGotty
A healthy lifestyle — that is what we eagerly signed up for in November of 2014 when the BEE Fit Wellness Challenge was only an idea and some workouts written down on paper. None of us, not even those instrumental in designing the challenge, knew how the event would turn out. It had never been done before at SCAD.
Health, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a “condition of being sound in body, mind or spirit.” Lifestyle, also defined by Merriam-Webster, is the “typical way of life of an individual, group or culture.”
After completing the final workout of BEE Fit with my team, I am sure that this end, this conclusion, is its own beginning. The words that my coach, Ali Bassir, said to our team on the first day we met in St. Paul’s Athletic Center have been playing nonstop in my head the entire challenge.
“This is only the beginning,” he said.
Throughout the stages of the challenge, those words evolved, changing with my changing body. At first, it just felt like the truth. This, I thought, really was just the beginning. We had seven weeks of workouts ahead of us. Over time, as my teammates and I grew stronger, it was still the truth but in a different way. Each of our workouts, each meal we eat, each challenge we start, are the beginnings of a healthier, stronger individual.
This past Saturday, we had our final challenge against all of the other teams. It was in St. Paul’s Athletic Center again, and it was nearly identical to the first challenge, with a little bit higher intensity.
On Tuesday, Team Orange and Team Red worked out together. I was sick; I had a fever earlier that morning and took off from class, but I couldn’t justify missing a workout on the final week of the challenge. I sat in the back room of Club SCAD watching my teammates and what you could basically call our sister team. It was a lot different to watch the workouts instead of be a part of them. I missed it.
I wanted so badly to work out with the rest of my team, but a failed warm up attempt had quickly shut that down. That need to sweat alongside them — my body’s desire to do something active — wasn’t a downer to me. I was so happy; it felt like an accomplishment that skipping workouts could make me physically miss them.
“Oh yeah, you get addicted,” my coach, Isabella Mendez told me. “You miss a day and everyone wants to know where you are.”
She sat with me on the sideline and I told her how excited I was that I wanted to exercise. That I felt like I needed to exercise or else I was skipping something important in my daily routine. That, to me, is the definition of a healthy lifestyle.
Most of the members of Team Orange have been lovingly tagged as “burpee haters” by Isabella in the past.
Last night, after I had recovered and attended core strength yoga and run a mile as a warm up, Team Orange had its last group workout as a part of BEE Fit. It was a bittersweet hour and killer on the entire body. We alternated between cardio and strength training: burpees and jumping jacks, lunges and TRX rows, squat presses and more. At the end our coaches gave us one final challenge to send us off right: 40 burpees.
We completed them in our own time. Around burpee number 30 I thought I could vaguely see the golden pearly gates gleaming through the fog in my head, but I think it was just the shiny droplets of sweat dripping into my eyes. I took a break and then powered through the last 10. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but as I counted 35, 36, 37… each number made me feel stronger. I actually smiled.
38, 39, 40 and I was done.
“Never would I ever have thought I would be able to do 40 burpees at the beginning of the challenge,” I told my coach.
“Hah,” she said. “I created a burpee lover!”
She walked around the gym saying, “I created a burpee lover.” She was so excited, and I was, too. Maybe I will begin a burpee challenge for myself now. Or maybe I’ll start a yoga challenge, or running, or maybe even all of those things.
I’ve realized that those gods and goddesses of Club SCAD, those impressively fit people, are still in their own beginning.
BEE Fit promised us a healthy lifestyle, and that’s a promise that was kept.
