Author: Holly Reiland

Today in Minneapolis, we earned our Thanksgiving dinner. In celebration of feasting the workout completed is entitled “The Gravy Boat” and more gravy boats you complete, the more gravy and other junk you earn tomorrow. The gravy boat starts in the center of two hills: The 35W memorial bridge hill, and the stone arch bridge hill. The group pairs up and one from each pair takes off to begin climbing opposite hills. Once halfway up, you come back down to the bottom, do 4 burpees and climb halfway up the other hill, come back down, do 4 more burpees and then go back to the first hill and go all the way up, etc until you’ve topped both hills. Completing that is one gravy boat. These Shenanigans went on for ~26 minutes until a cow bell sounded and the tribe collected back in the center of the two hills. read more

This morning it was raining. This morning it was raining BUT it was 58 degrees. During the second half of November we rarely see temperatures this high, especially before the sun wakes up.

To start, we bounced and rain danced and ran the warm up lap that takes us all the way down to the bottom of our original hill.  To celebrate the rain, the warmth, and a good morning in general, a new workout was explained. Its title? The Bermuda Triangle.  This workout gets its name because it incorporates 3 key locations we use on a regular basis for workouts. For the first 12 minutes of the workout, we took off up and down the original hill, doing 5 “I’m a star” jumps (where you crouch down low and then explode up into a mid-air jumping jack) at the 35W bridge memorial before running back down to the bottom. After 12 minutes, a bell was rung and tribe members switched it up. read more

Today is Veteran’s Day. Today we salute you.

The tribe completed a classic #NP_MSP workout this morning with a new twist. The Stone Arch Shuttle is a great workout for us to put on in the winter time as the Stone Arch Bridge is a little less crowded with run/bike commuters. However, it’s always fun to give it a go before the snow falls just to see how fast we all are. read more

You know what goes well with killer workouts? Beer. And with the #Sixer, that’s exactly what you get.

This morning was warm, about 20 degrees warmer than the beginning of Friday’s workout. However, in Minneapolis winter is just around the corner once we hit October and so as a warm up we practiced a move that will help keep us warm in the frozen winter months. In Minnesota we’re known to be “nice” but our hugs certainly don’t show it. So, to fix this issue, we practiced giving full-frontal bear hugs. None of that side-hug bullsh*t where you only use one arm and your hips touch instead of getting that full-on embrace. After the tribe gave out 3 good hugs to 3 tribe members they didn’t know, the bounce ensued and then a quick warm up to the bottom of our original hill. read more

This morning I was impressed with what the tribe accomplished before the sun rose to greet us. The morning started out with a group wiggle-shake to loosen up  followed by 100 push-ups .

After everyone’s arms were toast, the tribe took it up-river to do what has come to be one of the classics for #NP_MSP. Some think the Bridgewater is name after Teddy however, it’s actually just a lazy way to name the workout as it has tribe members hopping down over a ~4ft ledge to touch the Mississippi and running down river and up to the top of the Hennepin Ave bridge. read more

As the tribe gets ready for #NPSummit2015, our workouts don’t get any easier. Today we trained for the hills in Utah (like we do every week). Today we trained for life (again, like every week). Today we trained while wearing cat pants (see photo at bottom of blog).

This workout has many names however, this doesn’t take away from the intensity of it. Between the short sprints up the slope of Gold Metal Hill and the longer “recovery” jaunt on the winding path that spirals up to the top, tribe members are often left gasping for air by the end of the 30ish minute session. read more

As the seasons change and school starts again, November Project Minneapolis shifts gears as well. Although the mornings are darker, summer hasn’t left us yet. This was crystal clear this morning. The tribe readily embraced our 2-part workout consisting of hill repeats broken up by “hoisties” at the top and burpees increasing by 2’s at the bottom.  That was part 1. read more