The Rec Center’s annual Fitness Challenge began on Monday, Sept. 12, and will continue daily until Nov. 18.

The Fitness Challenge is a free program in which students, faculty and Rec Center members (Rec membership is not required to participate) time and log their exercise throughout the week on the Rec Center website. Participants who complete at least 150 minutes of exercise in a week are entered to win weekly prizes. Prizes include store coupons, Studio X passes, guest passes and personal training sessions.

Participants are encouraged to create teams of up to five people. The team with the most exercise minutes at the end of the challenge will win a grand prize. Individual participants are also permitted, however, there is a lesser chance of winning the grand prize.

Only intentional exercise is allowed to be logged. Meaning participants may not log daily tasks such as walking to and from class.

To sign up, participants can go to marshallcampusrec.com and navigate to the Fitness Challenge page, or participants may register at www.challegerunner.com/home/marshall. Participants may also track their weekly progress by downloading the Rec Center app.

“I think it’s a great motivator,” said Anna Blanchard, graduate assistant of fitness. “It’s great to have your friends egg you on, maybe invite you to classes and encourage you to complete the minutes of exercise you should have every week.”

Rick Farlow can be contacted at [email protected]