To continue the hype of summit Emma Raviv wanted to share a personal story about how it changed her life.
All Tribes Lead to Ontario
It was a late Friday morning about two years ago when I cracked open a bar exam textbook and couldn’t focus. Many of us know what that’s like; I was still buzzing from that morning’s workout at the Massachusetts Avenue bridge, having talked to Christine Power (then of the Boston tribe) about NP Summit. She had an open spot on her team. Did I want it?
I’d seen a blog post or two about Summit, which was a gathering of all November Project tribes across North America, to be held in Madison, Wisconsin (a state I’d never visited) a few months later, in September 2014. And I’d been going to November Project workouts at the mothership for six months at that point. But I still felt like an outsider; I didn’t have real NP friends, I didn’t hang out with any of them outside of workouts, few people knew my name, and surely a trip to Wisconsin was only for insiders.
On top of that, it was a time when I was feeling seriously unmoored; having just finished law school and my move to New York City was just a few months away. It would be kind of crazy to plan a weekend in Wisconsin with hundreds of weirdo culty strangers to run a race I surely wouldn’t be training for. Right?
It’s hard to describe what Summit 2014 did for me, and as a lawyer, effusive language is kind of my job. I got on a plane with former-stranger Britt. We rolled up to a group of humans from assorted cities who, years later, are some of the people I text the most and hug the hardest. That night, with Britt as my wingman, I met a pretty fast guy from DC who was moving to Ethiopia two weeks later and—well, we all know how that story ended.
Summit made me friends in San Francisco, DC, Boston, New York, and Chicago, to the extent that when I visited those cities and their tribes, I felt like I was home. Summit made me feel welcome when I finally made the move to New York. Summit made me feel excited to visit to my old tribe in Boston, and my home-home tribe in DC. Summit, and the following North Face races, brought me my girls, and my boy.
The Vibe today at the workout was amazing. Between the 5:28 an 6:28 crew we had about 35 new folks. We were wrapping up the 5:28 group where I met a man named Myles. He is a good friend of Amy Freeze who you might know her as the weather lady on ABC. Myles said to me that he has lived in NYC for 6 months and by far this was the best morning he has had in NYC. I felt like that was a bold statement to make at 6:28 in the morning. I think Ive gotten use to the early rise and maybe don’t have the same respect for it as Myles might as it was his first experience.
The truth is the mornings definitely do get better and in my opinion its all about the people that make it better. The sunrise is really beautiful but shared with friends and a sweaty workout makes it so much better. Watching the tribe grow to be so big that #PaulLeak needs to take four separate photos to make everyone fit should speak volumes.
As we all prepare for Summit and look forward to a great race this weekend, everybody is hyped about the annual gathering of the tribes. The co-leaders of NYC tribe reflect on who was deserving of the positivity award. After much research. I came upon a post on Jenn Lonschein’s wall that really struck a chord of how deserving Jenn was of this award. I took my research materials and presented it to the committee and it was a mutual decision that Jenn was our girl.
My mother has always told me that good things come in small packages. And that holds true as Jenn is not the tallest member of our tribe but definitely one of the most supportive and positive. Jenn is what Casey Snedecor describes as a yupper. She was the first person to show up to our bridge workout on Monday morning despite traveling all the way from NJ. Tuesday evening Jenn chose not to run the 5K in Hoboken because her foot was bothering her. When I asked her why, her response was “I wanna totally bring it at summit!” Typical Jenn, she was supportive on the sidelines by cheering everyone on and grabbing some photos as well. Jenn I am so glad you are here and I encourage you to keep bringing every single day.
