Author: Jen

I find the week between Christmas and New Years to be an odd time. After being so busy with Christmas festivities I find I am tired but at the same time wanting to make the most out of the days I have off. We cleaned, traveled, watched movies, ran, and spent more time with family and friends. That’s a lot packed into a few days. While I love all of that time spent, for a creature of habit so much of it is out of my regular routine and I find myself craving a little “regular programming.” I am grateful to have November Project to show up to in the mornings. I welcome the routine. It also helped me keep track of what day of the week it was! 😉 read more

I don’t know about you but 24 hours during the holiday season always seems to go by much more quickly than 24 hours on a “regular day.” As my parents we packing up their suitcases yesterday morning it felt like they’d just arrived and yet they’d been here for a week!

A week full of baking, cooking, eating, family, sweat dates, gifts, laughter, joy, and celebration. Each season I intend to take it easy, relax, and truly be in the moment. I believe I did a pretty good job of that this year and yet time still flew by. And I’ll admit, there were definitely moments where I got caught up in needing everything to be “just right” when the reality was that we were all together and that was exactly what was “just right.” read more

✨JOY✨PEACE✨HOPE✨LOVE✨

I believe that regardless of what you do or do not celebrate during this festive season these four words can stand strong for each of us.

It was a beautiful morning to gather with my November Project family. To say that I am blessed is an understatement. I felt incredible joy as everyone gathered at the base of the stairs. To have so many people wanting to begin their Christmas morning with their extended November Project family is a powerful statement about the community we have all build together. For those of you missing loved ones, I hope our gathering brought with it some peace and was a gentle hug for your heart. read more

While we left this morning without a birthday boom or an NP button, there are many things to celebrate from our stair workout.

💥Balmy December Weather

💥Partner Exercises Galore

💥Vancouver Island Visitors

💥Ezio High 5s

💥Encouragement on the stairs

💥Smiles, Hugs & Positivity

💥Another edition of “What’s in the Bag?!” read more

Kindness elves arrived in our grade two classes at my school at the beginning of December. Since that day our grade two students have been finding ways to spread kindness in and around our school community. Yesterday I came home to find the very best mail, letters from our amazing students. One of the notes challenged me to complete a very specific act of kindness: read more

Imagine if there were 999 bottles of beer on the wall? It would take a long time to get through that song. Or if Wayne Gretzky wore jersey number 999? He probably wouldn’t have been able to tuck it into the one side of his pants. Or if there had been 999 red balloons – in any language that would have been a lot of balloons! read more

In one week we will be celebrating our 1000 workout. That’s 1000 early mornings of fitness and community. That’s 1000 opportunities to meet and connect with other human beings (& dogs too…oh yeah, and the one cat that’s come to our workout). That’s 1000 invitations to thank someone for showing up with a high 5 or a hug. That’s 1000 sweaty dates to run hills, climb, stairs, do a deck-of-cards, grab bag, phone number or other workout circuit we’ve dreamt up. That’s 1000 early wake-ups that welcomed you to explore our amazing city and hopefully introduced to you some gems that you didn’t even know existed. There are probably more than 1000 various reasons for us to celebrate next Friday, so for whatever yours is, I hope you join us! Perhaps it will even be because you’re celebrating the first time you chose to #justshowup. read more

There was a whole lot of fun happening this morning at the funicular. Burpees, sprints, pushups, plank exercises, stairs, sit-ups, and tricep dips…a mixed bag of fitness treats!

I don’t know about you but this morning seemed to fly by. It felt like we just got started and then we were in place for the picture. It captures for me how fast the month of November has passed. If feels like just last week we were announcing the #NPbutton challenge and now on Wednesday, it’s already race day. read more

On Fridays, in the winter of 2013, we met at Emily Murphy Hill. This morning we had a very cool exchange with a non-NPer. As we were waiting at the bottom of the hill for the first of you to make your way down and greeting our late arrivers, a lady walked towards us and promptly let us know that she was not there to do hills with us as her workout was already complete. She then continued to share that she’s been following us from afar and can recall the early days when there were only 20 people running up and down Emily Murphy Hill. She also told us that she was sharing with another Kinsman goer about how she’s followed us from the beginning. read more

Did anyone else have Guns N’ Roses flashback this morning as they ran in the November Rain? Did anyone else ever experience a junior high dance moment when this song was played and you ended up in the longest dance embrace ever??!! Sometimes it was a blessing and other times it was painful? And what do you do during a slow dance when that odd fast beat starts? Wasn’t that the most awkward time? If no one else ever experienced this, I just gave you a glimpse into my junior high angst. read more