Free Fitness Movement. All you need to do is show up!
The world got a little weird ever since I lost that dog, right? YIKES. Well, let’s do something fun to change the mood.
If you follow 2018 Boston Marathon Winner and whiskey connoisseur Des Linden on any form of social media, you may have seen her post this photo yesterday.
As soon as I saw it, an idea struck. So, weirdly, I reached out to Des. And she wrote back, And she’s into it. Seriously.
Last year, when November Project Providence turned One, we had a celebration. Free Cold Brew. DJ at the workout. Donuts. Bagels. Magic. We crushed a PR day. We had nearly 200 people show up. Honestly, it was pretty incredible and you should’ve been there.
This year…well. It’s going to look a little bit different. Kind of.
WE ARE STILL CELEBRATING!! Maybe not together, but “together,” because we have one unifying workout to undertake.
In Providence, our PR day workout consists of running the stairs of the Rhode Island State House, and its grounds, for 40 sections of stairs, with a max time of 40 minutes.
MAY 27 – THE 2ND BDAY WORKOUT:
Go out into your neighborhood, your town, your city, your state. Find a staircase. Run stairs. Repeat for 40 Minutes.
Today, I lost a dog.
For anyone that has met me for even five seconds, you’ll know that I have a particular obsession with corgis. They look like little loaves of bread, and are always smiling, and have big stupid ears. Honestly, how can you not love that? Anyway…
Today started out like most Wednesdays. Our first work out at 5:27 had a particularly incredible level of hype, and everybody absolutely crushed it. Air high-fives were being given out like candy. Laughter, silliness, hard work. It was dope. 6:27, though…
Today was one of those days where Mother Nature didn’t care for our workout. Holly and I spent a good amount of time putting together the what, the how, the why of this morning, only to get to the state house and see most of the staircase as sheets of ice.
New England winter can be tricky sometimes. It may snow a little bit overnight, and you wake up and it’s somehow 45 degrees instead. Or, like today, it gets progressively more freezing as your day goes on.
There’s a meme that says “be the person your dog thinks you are.” I don’t have a dog, but almost everyone I know can attest that I will always stop to pet someone else’s dog. So there’s a 5 second window where random dog has to decide “good person or bad person?”
And I’d say a good 95% of the time, it’s a positive experience. And that’s the kind of energy I think is the most important to take with you in the new year, the new decade. Be the person that the people around you love you, and you love the people around you. But be so damn good that the people you don’t know yet are drawn to you, and be drawn to people like that. Make change in the world for the better. Set your resolutions to be the best possible human being you can. That’s my resolution for this year, and beyond.
We asked the members of the November Project Providence community what their resolutions were for the year, and honestly, I’m so inspired by each and every one of you – whether you told me your resolution in person, or sent it to me for this blog.
Last night around 8:30, I went to a local grocery store, and bought 3 pumpkins, because I wasn’t super sure people would bring them today, and I figured “it’s probably safe to have a few extras.”
What I did not expect today was the sea of orange that embraced the stairs and hills of the State House for our post-Halloween discount sales-price pumpkin workout.
The best part about the end of October is not the PR Day, or the spooky costumes, or the free candy, but the fact that just around the corner is the end of Daylight Saving Time for the rest of the year.
Why? Because we get an extra hour of sleep? Better – it makes that extra hour an easier opportunity to get up out of bed and do things early in the morning. 5:27 is a LOT easier when it feels like 6:27.
Something magical happens before the sun comes up every Wednesday morning. In the hours before dawn, we sweat together, we see the steam come off the faces of friends, we laugh together.
Right now in Providence, it is 72 degrees and sunny. The day has burgeoned into quite the late-summer day, considering how it started. In case you missed it….
This morning was MOIST. It started drizzly, and ended squishy, and then around 6:45, the rain stopped. So it was the kind of day where shutting off the alarm clock is an easy thing to do. Those days though – those are the best days to actually BE at November Project.
For the past five days, the November Project Providence community has set their alarms for approximately early-ass o’clock in order to be a part of our Second Annual Hell Week.
We use the term Hell Week in the military sense – grueling workouts in pre-dawn hours every day for a week, designed to build fitness, build reslience, and build community, all while taking in different spaces throughout our incredible city.
For the most part, we were lucky. Our weather held out, or the rain ended early, or the temperatures were a little above average for the week.
A quick synopsis of the week for everyone:
This is a post about November Project Providence’s Hell Week, which (let’s be honest) is not hell at all. It’s five (5) days of:
So let’s talk about WHAT is going on. Ready? Set? Go!
Monday, October 14:
Prospect Terrace Park ( Congdon St, Providence, RI 02906).
From here, we make a quick trip to Jenckes Hill, for the best funnest hilliest way to start your week! Start your week right and be there.