Photograph: Roxana Marroquin

For New Yorkers who are tired of going to bars “not to meet people” but secretly hoping to meet people, and then never meeting anyone, consider: Fit2Date (fit2date.com), an outdoor fitness club in which singles meet up for four hour-long training-slash-mingling sessions. “We focus on putting your fitness first and leave the rest to Cupid,” touts the website. I’m unattached and exercise about four days a week, so I figured it was worth a shot.

The warm-up
I arrive at the Central Park meeting spot about two minutes late. Already, the 12 or so prospective daters are milling around, chatting and making introductions. I scope the crowd—mostly mid-twenties, and all at least as fit as I am. Some are martial artists and marathon runners, while others stick to the treadmill, and one guy lit up a cigarette at the end—but in general, it’s clear they weren’t there just to pick up dates.

Round 1
I strike up a conversation with a cute aspiring actor in his mid-twenties who ends up being my first workout buddy. We banter a bit. “Yeah, I already worked out today—my usual five-mile run, and some ab and chest work,” he says, when I asked him about his standard routine. In reply, I lament missing (okay, skipping) my Yogalates class. Once the workouts begin, it’s sweet—if somewhat cringe-inducing—that he cheers me on while I run my leg of the team sprints, then do push-ups, then sprints again. After the running drills, I actually look forward to the jump-squats and lunges, but know that I’ll regret it like a one-night stand tomorrow.

Round 2
At the midpoint, our charming Australian drill sergeant, Erica, switches up the matches. My second partner, an also attractive aspiring actor and self-proclaimed fitness fanatic (a trend?), jokes that he sees this as a girls-versus-boys competition, which might have been his playful way of trying to unleash my competitive streak. We stumble through the three-legged race, his energy flagging too—possibly because he carries me (figuratively, but almost literally) around the second, then third, then fourth cones. It goes downhill for us from there, culminating in my least-fave exercise: the Commando Crawl (a name that oddly didn’t elicit snickers from the exhausted group), where we dragged our bodies along the ground military-style, leaving my white tank with some ill-placed dirt stains.

The cool-down
After the final relay—involving command cards for each pair, like “Do 20 sit-ups, then leap-frog to the next station”—everyone lingers. My first partner hits it off with a lithe blonde and they exchange numbers. The aforementioned smoker, a genial guy from Long Island, pours on the charm to a very tan, very fit, very blonde Aussie, who gamely plays along. And although I go home without a love connection, I feel good: I had some laughs while burning some serious calories.

The recap
While the session I went to was the last (and therefore the hardest) of the series, Erica assures me that she eases participants into the fitness and the matchmaking, first by splitting the group into teams and then into partners, whom she matches using participant feedback and her own intuition. Throughout a series, which is limited to 12 to 16 singles, she also sets up weekly “e-mail training buddies” as another way to help participants connect. A round of celebratory drinks at the conclusion of the four-week, four-hour course is included in the $200 fee—perfect if you really can’t meet your match.