Free Fitness Movement. All you need to do is show up!
The first time I learnt about Juneteenth was seeing this race number logo on the National Black Marathoners Association website, the words “Free to Run” really struck a chord in my heart. Even without context I knew it had a deeper meaning than how simple the act of running was. The words of the NBMA below explains it better than I ever could.
Look, I’m not trying to solicit sympathy or jeez even freaking pity with this blog post. I just want to give a glimpse into how I process life as a Black man in a White World, (that’s an actual song by the amazing Michael Kiwanuka, it’s great you should check it out). Of course, it goes without saying that these are my personal opinions and processes. No black experience is the same. Mine is that I’m a Yoruba man, who grew up in the Motherland, where my ancestry was a big part of my upbringing. A lot of African Americans don’t have that privilege which I took for granted for a lot of my life, so that’s one difference.
Happy whatever day of the week it is! It’s your friendly neighborhood introvert, Liz! I was asked to write a blog that shares my COVID-19 shelter-in-place experience from the viewpoint of someone who is probably enjoying this way more that a lot of you right now. I mean, November Project is filled with amazing, beautiful, outgoing, extroverted humans-that’s the whole point of the group! I love each and every one of your social butterfly spirts; I just can’t relate to them. What I can relate to, is feeling uncomfortable, out of control of a situation, and frustrated. So, I would like to share some things with you that have helped me through this unprecedented time we are experiencing. From one introvert to…. a lot of lovely extroverts 😊
Hello and Shalom again, NP BAL!
It’s been awhile; TOO long for that matter. Rachel Gang, here. I REALLY miss YOU, NP Baltimore! I didn’t realize it that much, until I saw your sweaty faces and couldn’t high-five ya or give y’all a hug through the zoom screen 🙁
Wednesday and Friday mornings, even the hills, burpees, squats, hoistees, yet most of all the sweaty hugs. For now, I’m staying the course and still braving the dry and sweltering desert temps which linger well into the evenings. Last time I wrote for ya, I was I was dreaming and drafting up a plan to get that #freefitness and #NP thing going over here in Israel’s southern desert. WELP, that fell out the window (or off the horse or perhaps off the table, however the expression goes…) Remind me? The more and more I speak and live in a Hebrew-speaking world, the more and more my English declines and goes out the window. I slowly found out Israelis aren’t really morning people, and I became less of one too the longer I lived here in Israel. I’d like to say that a few sweaty faces on screen from the Baltimore folks have changed that for the better.
Racing has always been a battle of wills for me, either to finish ahead of someone or to push myself beyond what I assumed was my limit. The dreaded Druid Hill 10K has always been the latter, an inner battle to push my body to do something amazing. I’ve run marathons and ultramarathons, but this small 10K race that takes place in the heart of the city I love so much, still stands with those achievements has something I’m proud of.
My Running Buddy
When I was 15 I watched my dad complete the Marine Corps Marathon. I still remember, it was a warm day and there’s a steep hill for the last .2 that was torture for a lot of runners. As I was waiting for him to pass by us, there was a man on a trike. He was really struggling. As he grit his teeth and tried to get up the hill, a few runners came from behind and helped push him up the hill. I turned to my mom and said- one day I’m going to run a marathon.
A race is always a daunting task, even a 5K comes with its own anxiety. Remembering the agony of straining for a PR and fulfilling expectations are reasons for my nervousness on race day. And then there is the Gin Riot, a race designed to showcase the hardest parts of a typical NP workout. Which other race has burpees, stairs and running hills as part of it?
A race is always a daunting task, even a 5K comes with its own anxiety. Remembering the agony of straining for a PR and fulfilling expectations are reasons for my nervousness on race day. And then there is the Gin Riot, a race designed to showcase the hardest parts of a typical NP workout. Which other race has burpees, stairs and running hills as part of it?
Open spaces are an essential part of November Project and we value them for the chance they give us as places for our community to form, workout and thrive. We are lucky enough to have these spaces because of the largesse of the cities we live in. It is part of the NP identity that we exist in places that are accessible to everyone to participate in our community. In Baltimore we try to maximize these open spaces by moving to different workout locations for the last friday of every month. The point is to try to discover new spaces to “opt outside” and hopefully expose people in those neighborhoods to our brand of fun. City parks are an essential part of our NP experience and our appreciation of them cannot be overemphasized.
Does your PR matter? Yes it does. It matters to YOU! There must be a reason that you come out to workout so early in the morning. It certainly can’t be to watch Kay describe a super creepy hand hug. Our reasons vary from trying to get fitter, preparing for upcoming races or maybe just to catch the sunrise. Yeah, there are sun watchers among us guys. Besides those sun watchers, we all show up to push ourselves to a different fitness level. PR day has been our way of getting a measure of how far we’ve come.
One of our favorite memories as leaders comes when we see someone stand up when we ask who broke their PR. Because we are usually supervising the workout, we see how much work and effort you guys put into each workout. We see where you guys start from and the gradual progress that comes with all the workouts we put you guys through. It’s usually obvious when we design a workout for 15mins and then you guys burn through it in like 10mins. Then we look at each other and say “Wow, these guys are killing it!” All this usually culminates at the end of the month on PR day. Then we get the true measure of how far we’ve come for the month. One of the best messages we ever got was a picture of a PR day board one of our tribe mates created.
To know that we helped someone jump about 1.3 rounds in their PR is really very gratifying and totally makes our day.
So this month, in total pursuit of that feeling of pride and joy, we are going to simulate PR day in all forms in order to get more crushed PRs at the end of the month. So that means we are going to sharpen those burpees, give you a chance to work on coming down those stairs two at a time, looking at you Gail 🙂
We also went in search of a hashtag, we started at #PRoctober quickly moved to #OctoPuRRRRR abandoned that and somewhat settled on #OctoPR Clearly we are mostly doing this for the hashtag, but if you stick with it we’ll have a decent one by the end.
I know what you are thinking, “But I hate PR day!” We know, no one likes taking tests. So we’ll try to make this as much fun as possible, but one thing we can promise is that you’ll definitely be ready for the Baltimore Running Festival on the 21st and then when PR day arrives in all its glory on the 25th, you can stare it straight in the eye and say, “Bring it on!”
