Free Fitness Movement. All you need to do is show up!
Wednesdays are our favorite day of the week. We’re just a young, newish November Project City (we turn 2 next year!) who work out just once a week. 30-40 minutes of bouncing, running, sweating, and high-fiving. It’s not a lot of time, but it’s our time, and we love it.
EXCEPT THIS WEEK.
This week November Project Oakland hosted our first HELLAWEEK. We worked out all five—
November Project is a tricky animal. So many of the people hesitant to show up are worried that there’s too much running, or that they’ll be too slow. No matter how emphatically/loudly/obnoxiously we assure them that, actually, November Project REALLY IS for everyone, lots of people are still nervous to show up.
It’s been a minute since we last blogged.
But today felt worth reflecting on. We’re well on our way into 2019, we’re well over a year into this #FreeFitness thing in Oakland, and today was yet another example of us Californians pretending we’re as #weatherproof as the rest of the country. (IT’S KIND OF COLD HERE, OKAY.)
Wow that year went by fast.
A year ago this week, a bunch of us met up at the Lake Merritt Boating Center in the East Bay to try out some free fitness. With an abundance of creativity, we called this little group activity East Bay Free Fitness.
The rest is history. New people showed up every week, we started running stairs every last Wednesday of the month, we became November Project Oakland, Amanda Blauvelt designed an awesome tree tag, we started competing for the Golden Shoe with November Project San Francisco, we welcomed the rest of November Project Planet Earth to the Bay for an #optinside weekend during the California fires, and we all built something truly local, energetic, and fun in Oakland.
Most of this post is written by the tribe, filtered through our very own Nathan Fisher. But first, a little context from Alex and Rebecca for why we worked out in a grocery store this morning:
We’re getting pretty stir crazy in Oakland. But being forced inside does force us to get creative, and we’ll be honest, we’ve had some pretty memorable workouts lately. For NP Oakland’s popup workout this morning, the awesome management team at the local Safeway let us work out in the aisles. All we can say is that it was a blast. Take it away, Nathan. (We’ll be over here crying happy tears.)
So this morning was an adventure.
For weeks, Rebecca and Alex have been working with Dan Clayton (NPSF OG leader) to plan NP Oakland’s first Friday popup workout. This week was UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Wellness Week, and with Dan involved, it was a great opportunity to test out a Friday workout and take a trip up to Berkeley, where many of NP Oakland’s loyal members live.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN. Lots of important announcements this week so read to the bottom.
This morning was scary awesome. We had Wonder Women. We had Jedi. We had Mario Brothers. We had Purple People Eaters. November Project Oakland TURNED OUT for Halloween and it was a sight to see.
Prize for best costume might go to Benny, who became Benny and the Jet by strapping a rocket on his back and still managing to take all these sweet pictures all morning.
SQUAD. If you were at the Story Time workout last week, you heard from our dear friend Tomi about how he came to love November Project. We wanted to share this great memory of his from PR Day with NP_LAX, so he’s our guest blogger this week. Announcements below his story.
Morning Run November Project – 8/30/17
For the month of September, NP OAK has been hosting a recruiting challenge. We divided the tribe into two teams – Team Green and Team Yellow – and encouraged everyone to bring new people to their team.
Folks racked up points each week by finishing laps. Some weeks Team Yellow Won, some weeks Team Green won. This week, PR Wednesday, Team Green crushed Team Yellow, 189 to 161, which brought the grand total to…
Maybe not everyone pays as much attention to this as Rebecca and Alex do, but it’s been a very warm and sunny summer in Oakland…EXCEPT ON WEDNESDAY MORNINGS.
When BG and Laura came to NP OAK’s first workout in May, we told them what to expect in Oakland: sunshine. We East Bay-ers love to tell our San Francisco friends how much warmer and brighter it is on our side of the bridge.