Today’s guest blog comes from Janelle Hartman: a hard working, completely badass rockstar that we could not be more thrilled to call a member of OUR tribe. If you haven’t met her yet, you should, here is her story:
The road to becoming a part of the November Project Tribe-NYC.
My road to NP-NYC started about 2 years ago when I volunteered for the New York Road Runners’ Team Championships. I was working in the volunteer check-in and Paul Leak (yes, that Paul Leak of #paulleak fame) was the Volunteer Boss for the race. Many of the November Project runners came over to see Paul before they went off to what I figured were 5-6 minute mile paces for the Team Championships (you are welcome). I thought “I could never go to the workouts with these extremely fit and very young runners. I said to Paul, “I don’t think I could be a part of November Project but if you have a late December Project, that maybe more my speed…”
But, I was curious and when the NP book came out, I showed up at North Face to buy my book and collect my autographs. Of course, Bojan asked me how long I had been at NP and I said sheepishly, I have not gone to one yet… “you see my foot….” And then I blurted out, “ I am shy”. Yeah, we all know that really isn’t true. I was insecure, you bet. Shy, not so much. You can see by the messages, they weren’t buying my shyness excuse….
I continued my stalking of November Project on Facebook and on the “gram” and talking with friends who were NP members like I was doing an article for Huffpost, “so, when you go, do you really have to do x,y, and z?”
And then, a little over a year ago, they came to my park. My back yard. My Astoria Park. I had no excuses left. I live 8 blocks from the park for crying out loud. I went, it poured, and I was drenched. I ran around and slowly let go of my fears of what would these adorably cute fit people think of me? I relaxed a little more each time someone introduced themselves to me or said, “good job”. Reggie became my Facebook friend in literally 5 minutes after we took this photo together (Love you Reggie).
I started to carefully figure how I could get to workouts (except for PR day, that’s for the fast people). One by one, I got to know you. I came more and more and when I saw my birthday was on Bridge Day, not only did I bring my first shirt for tagging but it was the first time I brought my selfie stick. See below, my first NP selfie. Now, it comes with me to almost every workout.
Here’s a selfie from the last bridge day… Maggie’s dad is featured here appropriately. Maggie Huang was the friend who needed to get me to NP today like the bride/mom/birthday person to their respective surprise party so she created a video message with her father to make sure “I show up” for my “positivity stick party.”
Saturday was Team Championships, 2 years after I rejected the idea of ever going to November Project and a year after I went to my first workout and got drenched. Friday morning, I got drenched again (and a little bit lost on the way to my party) but “I showed up” and boy, was I glad.
Dear November Project NYC and BK members,
You are a generous bunch of folks, you cheer for me when I am lumbering along at a snail’s pace (in my mind, you are all gliding above the ground without actually touching it). You hug me with your best bear hug. You remind me that I need to look up when I am running (yeah, I am working on that). You tell me you are proud of me even when I am dead last in a race…again…like hours after you finish… You let me shove a selfie stick in front of your face and say “c’mon let’s get one together”. You tell me you missed me at workout when my thyroid refused to let me come (really, my thyroid is really mean). You, not only let me be on your team, you make feel like a special member. I love you all. Thank YOU for being there. Thank you so much to Mary, Jason, Robert, Jeanie, Sierra, John, and Paul for your amazing leadership past and present.
Oh, and as for PR day, I did my first PR day this last Wednesday.
Love you all,
Janelle Hartman
Thank you so much for sharing Janelle! Keep being awesome.
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