Free Fitness Movement. All you need to do is show up!
Yeah, this blog is dedicated…
To all the people that told me Mondays mornings would never amount to nothin’
To all the people that lived above the buildings that we were bouncing in front of
Snoozed the alarm when all we were trying to do is get our free fitness on
It’s all good, baby baby.
No point dwelling over the past. If you missed the Leftover Turkey Trot last friday, then you’ll have to wait til next year to strut off the thanksgiving turkey and whiskey and dessert.
The wait is almost over. After what feels like a long-ass weekend apart, Monday morning is almost here. We’ve had a few days to kick that tryptophan out of our system we’re ready to kick our Monday square in the face. Let’s milk it for everything it’s worth. See you tomorrow morning. Murray Field. 6:29AM. Heads up – – it’s gunna start raining at 10am. Get your outdoors in before….
kick·ball
/ˈkikbôl/
Noun
1. A game for children that resembles baseball but that is played with an inflated ball which is kicked instead of being hit with a bat. (Merriam-Webster)
2. The mad illest game takin’ over the whole east coast. (Urban Dictionary)
Synonyms: Soccer Baseball, Kick Baseball
As I started to ascend the back side of Cory Hill this morning all I could see was a few dark silhouettes outlines by a piercing harsh white street light. Some bodies standing alone, others embracing in a hug, throwing their hands up for a high five or bent over stretching out their still waking body.
Sometimes the day gets WAYYYY outta control and you look back and wonder where the day has gone.
Then you remember how you started day, the holi-day, the week-day and instantly you feel like the most productive, positive human on this planet.
Mondays give you wings. Or something like that.
If you’re just tuning in to the show theres this thing called Wisco notes, or Wisconsin. Yes, wisconotes, is currently sitting at number 7 on Apples top podcasts BUT it began as a name for short, sweet to the point blogs. Like Cliffnotes. Yeah that’s exactly what they are. So with these next few announcements you’ll all nab that passing grade!
A little note on today – – after more than 3 years of trying to keep Monday mornings fresher than a oldsmobile Little Tree car air-freshener in an oldsmobile, I still love coming up with our Monday recess activities.
Decks have been part of NP’s culture since our inception. We’ve done red decks, blue decks, two decks and three decks. We’ve done group decks and solo decks, double decks and triple threat decks* . Well today for the first time ever we played DECK DECK GOOSE.
Breakfast:
A refreshing little breakfast.
Little did I know when I had us bounce to some refreshing Ooo’s and ahhh’s that we’d be graced with a refreshing power washing mist at section…. uh… right there were no section numbers, they didn’t exist today.
Week 5 of frogman served up a cooler, more satisfying flavor and slightly moist portion of stairs where we weren’t left gasping for air and water from the insanely high Scoville Level.
“Now don’t have me break this thing down for nothing.
Now I want to see y’all on your baddest behavior.
Lend me some sugar, I am your neighor! Ah, here we go!”
-Outkast
Quite possibly one of my favorite bands and I’m about to translate that into one of my favorite times of year.
#NP-Summit-Season. You’ve heard us mention this before, unless today was your first day, or you’re still contemplating #justshowingup for the first time and are tuning in from behind your electronic devices you may have no idea of what we’re talking about. So let me break this thing down for you:
If you’ve been, you understand the power of this thing called SUMMIT. If you haven’t, you might not understand why we hype so hard. Look, we don’t make any profits per head, we don’t get incentives or bonuses but we’ve had our fair share of NP Summit rodeos and know it’s a hoot-hollerin-grand-ol-time. We’re also completely aware that not everyone can afford it or take time off work or have something else planned that weekend, etc etc so this is mainly for you that are on the fence. Those that COULD make it work if you really wanted to and for those that tune out when we start talking about this because it doesn’t apply to you… just listen in for a minute. Because I did the same things. Until my first one and I’ve never looked back.
49 cities. Across the world. You’ll never really be able to comprehend that number. Even if you attend Summit.
Throw the race, the workout and the free fitness out the window for a minute and summit is all about MEETING the people– like you — that make up those 48 cities and show up to this thing because they think we’re idiots, or funny and crazy. They value this movement and love finding a bunch of people just like them. Community, my friends, outside the four walls of your city.
SO SOME TIPS AND WHAT TO EXPECT:
+ First show up Thursday am/pm. Even though the race is Saturday – trust me – you want to be there for the Friday morning workout in MKE.
+ Travel with friends from your city – hire a private jet – rent and pack a van with some ballers fro your city and head west to MILWAUKEE! The more peeps the more fun. #physics.
+ Once you’re there do not tether yourself to your city group. You’ll get to see them on at the airport Sunday. Reach out to new folks. Meets some new humans from cities you’ve never been.
+ Go to coffee after Friday AM’s workout. This is where all the plans are made for the rest of the day and where are you in such a rush to/from anyways?!?!
+Sign up for a team or a race for Saturday/Sunday. Popular races are Marathon relay (team), Marathon (individual), 50k/50m (individual).
+ Saturday PM: Sweat all day, Party (and sweat) all night.
+Sunday AM: Quick rally from the party and head back to the mountain for some more racing or head to the airport for the biggest social hangover of your life….
I can promise you it’ll be a blast and worth every penny. You’ll meet new people. You’ll stay connected. These people will end up at your wedding and this whole world will become a lot smaller and more connected.
For a full rundown and list of details check it out here: https://november-project.com/november-project-summit-full-info-npsummit-milwaukee/
Other Notes:
WEDNESDAY: Frogust continues – it’s your second to last chance to hop on the bandwagon and finish up hell month. ALSO — We’ll be tagging ALL VESTS at the stadium with a special tag… in anticipation of a special pop-up workout… See Below.
THURSDAY: Pop-up #NPlunch workout. 12:30pm. Post Office Square. #ALLVESTAUGEST themed. YOU MUST WEAR A VEST.
Upwards.
Capoze
Rewrite history. When you really take a second to think about it, that’s exactly what we did this morning.
I know we’ve heard that phrase before and it probably went in one ear hole and out the other ear hole. Seems like a pretty daunting and impossible task. Right?! How the hell am I supposed to rewrite the past? I can’t go back in time, I’m no Marty McFly or Doc Brown, I can’t change what’s already happened. That’s probably true…
But when you’re dealing with imaginary history (or self-created worlds), like the timeless tragedy of Romeo + Juliet, you can ABSOLUTELY do whatever you want. You can rewrite it, you can chop it up, insert some content, diverge down the yellow brick road, really any direction you want to run with it and my only suggestion to your remix is BIG, it’s AUDACIOUS and it’s FUN AS HELL.
A lot of times we fall into the patterns of what we’re familiar with, what we’ve been taught or what story we’ve known to be true.
As soon as I said hey we’re doing a Romeo-and-Juliet-partner-workout today, you all jumped to the conclusion that we’d be ending up like the two star-crossed lovers. But naw, I wasn’t going to let that happen. In fact we did the opposite, we woke our yawning butts up, moved, explored (some places we probably weren’t allowed) and laughed those same butts off. If that’s not LIVING at it’s finest than I don’t know what else is!
Even at NP, a movement that at it’s core was created to frivolously stir the routine pot until it tipped over, came crashing into a million pieces and send chaos pouring through the street of Boston (or one of the other 48 cities this thing shakes), we fall into routines, patterns and stories. We love Wednesday and Fridays because we know, at this point, what to expect. The story is written. We know the setting, we know the characters, the plot, the ending — it’s going to start off with a bunch of hype, suck at some point and end with us skipping off into the sunrise like little 4 year olds.
But Monday’s aren’t like that. They can be if we let them, but Sunday night when I was scoping out the ORIGINAL SPOT with a ton of beautifully manicured stairs I was not really excited about what I was coming up with. On my iphone screen, with the google earth app pulled up, this place looked interesting. In person it looked fun AF but once I started filtering all the safety, and convenience filters on this spot it became a lot less exciting. I kept mind open to the spot though. I saw a barricaded set of stairs and my mind immediately went to how do we get up those. We could hop them….Mom’s gone….alright I got my plan A. But there’s gotta be a back door. With some exploring, sure enough I found it. A completely unobstructed entry into a completely off limits zone.
Done. We’re going on a balcony…..Hmmmm balcony….Aladdin, Rapunzel….Romeo and Juliet.
And that ladies and gentlemen is how the mind of a 8 year old works.
I guess the point (or points) I’m trying to make in all this is don’t stop dreaming, creating. Keep rewriting history or your story, both real and imaginary.
Don’t stop at the first obstacle or second obstacle or the third because there’s always a back door somewhere.
“And never grow up” – Peter Pan
Keep those heads in the clouds and we’ll see you every Monday from here on out.
Love,
Capoze
COMING UP
I’m rolling into my 5th year of #justshowingup. 5 years. That might not seem like a long time but I can’t remember the last time I’ve truly committed to anything, by choice, for that long. So why this movement? Why for so long?
I want to share the story of my beginnings at NP because I feel it’s probably similar to a lot of yours.
Late July 2013 I spent an impromptu weekend with some strangers that I happened to get involved with when my best friend and roommate got injured hours before his Ragnars relay race. I had never run more than 5 consecutive miles before and he asked me to run a 6, 8 and 12 mile leg. I reluctantly agreed since the team had no other replacements.
I finished the race and became tight with 12 new humans that I would never have otherwise met. One of them, you guessed, was an avid NP-er. She was like you NEED to check out this thing. So the next day, Monday, I showed up. Tuned into my headphones and standing on the fringes of the baseball field over in the North End. A large dude immediately came up to me and said you look new, take this. He handed me a cardboard cut out of what I later found out was a recruiting paper and slapped a big old hug on me.
I jumped right into the workout, got zero names, made zero connections and ran off into the city, far behind 100’s of people that scattered in their own direction home.
Wednesday I just showed up. Saw the same big large dude that recognized me from Monday and pulled me into the newbie meeting.
I toed the line at the bottom of section 37, had no idea what the fuck a GPS running watch was but was wired to my headphones, listening to “safe and sound” on repeat.
I continued like this for 9 months. When the two large dudes told me to turn and hug someone, I did asked their name and then immediately forgot it. And, I didn’t get any grassroots gear for the first 9 months of my NP pregnancy. Why? Because I wanted to feel like I was a part of it and not on the fringes before I wore the gear. Don’t get me wrong I loved this thing, told all my friends about it, spoke its phrases but all I simply did was just show up and listen to what they told me to do.
Then I decided on a Friday in March 2014 to take a day off from work and just chill rather than rush off to get to work on time.
I went to coffee where a bunch of NPers usually did after running hills and sat down at a table by myself, still hesitant to approach anyone. But then someone came to me. Her name was Ellen Perl and she started asking me these questions, getting to know me. 10 min later we had 8 people around us and I was getting invited to their party later that night.
Sure I’ll check it out. And I did. And I can tell you from that day on I was never on time for work again. I was in. I was hooked.
I actively sought out meeting new people. Seeing how many people I could recruit to a single workout. I started hanging out with more and more humans from this movement and my life was starting to be a hell of a lot more positive and fun.
The following week I got my first gear tagged. Hung the original recruiting paper right on my way out my bedroom door. Both of these served as a reminder about what showing up really meant TO ME.
Then in September 2015 I was asked to take over the keys to this high speed train as a coleader. If I hadn’t already been all in this definitely got me there.
Fast forward to this week. My 5th anniversary and the week coming off of M.O.M (Meeting of the minds) where 105 co-leaders from around the world gathered around a campsite to ultimately talk. We reunited with old friends, we met new strangers, we shared serious talks, hard talks, and of course the stupid nonsense banter and jokes.
But most importantly I saw 104 other humans that are so deeply passionate about making a difference in their communities and cities that it brought me to another level. If I wasn’t ALL IN before, I’m coming back from this even more ALL IN. 5 years later and my love for this movement and community is stronger than ever.
I’m coming back even more committed to ALL OF YOU.
Even more committed to being the best support and coleader I can to Em.
And even more committed to smearing this movement all over the city so that everyone can access the positivity that we all experience at the ass crack of dawn.
This is more than JUST a workout. It’s more than simply a run club. And it’s more than just another community. It’s something even more indescribable and magical with all of those elements worked into.
Who I am this week is a far cry from the dude who would just show up, half hug the humans he was told to, and drown out the good vibes with his headphones on a Wednesday morning.
So what can I share with all of you? I’m not sure if it was that original hook in the Ragnar van that got me to #justshowup, or Ellen’s invite at the coffee shop, or BG’s original recruiting paper, or the fact that he remembered I was new the new kid. Maybe it was that first time I took out my headphones, or that time Em and Bojan asked me to be a coleader, or the connections I created with 104 other humans this last weekend. But at some point I allowed myself to be open to this thing. To let it impact me. I’m not telling you to just take out your headphones, or just fully hug that person when I tell you to, because that might not be IT for you. What I am encouraging is that you STAY OPEN and give this thing a chance to see what it can be for you. You stay open and more present when we ask you to turn and hug or high five the person next to you or partner with a stranger. Because you never know where that one moment might take you.
And lastly, thank you guys for continuing to just show up. Whether you believe it or not, the friendships, adventures, connections and shenanigans that we’ve all shared together – keeps my love for this thing growing stronger and stronger every single day.
Keep staying open November Project Boston.
Love,
Capoze