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I was looking through very old japanese travel blogs and reading comment sections for practice. I ran into this phrase that I can't look up anywhere.

Here's the full page if context helps. http://boniting.com/nappi/2009/10/dallas-world-aquarium.html.

This is the sentence that got me thinking.

体張ってるかいがある

Google translate say it means "I have a physical fitness". I'm sure that's wrong, though, given how google is. "

"張る" seems to have so many meanings. So I'm not sure what it means if its attached to "体". Also, what's the function of かい here? Is it related to the counter 回?

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It comes from the expression 体を張る, which more or less translates to "to put one's body on the line". Both are also used hyperbolically, as in here, where it's used to indicate that the blogger is doing something that they normally (or that a normal person) might be reluctant to do in order to provide more interesting content. The sentence itself means something along the lines of

「体{からだ}を張{は}っている甲斐{かい}がある」

"It's worth putting my body on the line for."

甲斐{かい} denotes "worth doing something", "worth to do something".

Although I would presume that you already knew this (since you were able to convert 張ってる to 張る), I will add the following for completeness' sake: the 張って（い）る (as opposed to 張る) indicates that the speaker does this on a regular basis (/"that the action continues even as we speak", in a sense - you can find other examples here). Also, the い in ～って（い）る is often dropped in colloquial usage, as has been done here, and this is also why the を has been omitted.

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    「体を張る甲斐がある」"It's worth putting my body on the line for." で、OPの「体を張って(い)る甲斐がある」も、同じ英訳になりますか？ 　英語で違いを表すには、どう言ったらいいんでしょうねぇ。。。
    – Chocolate ♦
    May 17, 2019 at 9:27
  • @Chocolate 一応、英訳は変わらないのですが、違いを表現したい場合は（”In the sense that the speaker does this habitually even now”）などといったかっこ書きを添える必要があります。……やはり、そっちのほうにすべきでしょうか
    – VVayfarer
    May 17, 2019 at 9:40
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    @VVayfarer Maybe it's just me but my image of "It's worth putting my body on the line for" sounds like you're going to do dangerous things starting from now (because it's worth it now).
    – Ringil
    May 17, 2019 at 15:30
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    @Ringil "It's been (...)" would be unclear as to whether or not this is still the case, though. And I feel "put one's body on the line" is a pretty good TL, since you have this type of usage for the closely related "put one's life on the line".
    – VVayfarer
    May 17, 2019 at 15:47
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    @VVayfarer Okay that's pretty true. Maybe given the full sentence "そう言ってもらえて何より、体張ってるかいがあるわ" it could just be better to say "Your kind words makes the personal danger worth it."
    – Ringil
    May 18, 2019 at 3:43

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