This year has been rather insane. It’s hard for me to differentiate between whether the pace of my life has picked up rapidly because I took on co-leadership of this momentum building movement or whether the state of the world has my previously nonexistent anxiety picking up and noticing everything around me. I honestly feel like I blinked a few times since Sydney handed over an extremely thoughtful gift of the “key” to November Project Baltimore last December and yet, here we are December 20th, 2017. Little did I know what would possibly be in store for me over the coming year and beyond. I have gotten to know SO MANY AMAZING HUMANS who #justshowup to workouts routinely!
I have felt some extremely high highs, like getting November Project into M&T Bank Stadium (after many years of Nick, Pat and Syd’s persistent communication and hard work!) during my second month as a co-leader, rolling 50 deep to NP5UMMIT, taking a crew in a van to Wisconsin all in the name of #raceeverything and #neverstopexploring, watching 60 something NP BAL-ERS train for and run the Baltimore Running Festival, friendships grow as a result of just that, celebrations afterward at the Baltimore Community Toolbank, having 20+ racers at the Patapsco Valley 50K and of course City Glow 2017 was one for the books. We were so thrilled to have some leaders from the tribe step up and each rally their crew in their own way. It was fun for us to watch personalities shine in this environment with extra spicy glow, extremely active and witty social media, lightening speed or all the puns you could shake a stick at. This whole year has been a team effort and City Glow was a pretty fun celebration of the community that we build every single workout.
My point with highlighting the highs is that I hope you share some of these as some of your favorite moments too. We as leaders should not be privy to them any more than you as a member of this tribe. The important thing that has changed for me in this role is that I try to get to know some new faces at each and every workout. This is easier when more people show up but the reason I have met so many awesome people through NP is because I’ve sought newbies out at the workouts and try to remember when they come back. I challenge those of you who have been coming for a long time to get out of YOUR NP comfort zone as much as possible. After all, I think that is why so many people like NP so much. It is a breath of fresh air in this busy and social media heavy world – a place where you can disconnect from that, workout and get to know other awesome humans. Why get complacent and settle for comfort when you never know who you will strike up a conversation with! The connection is 100% the key in this movement and I challenge you to strive to connect with more people at workouts as we move into the colder and (I think) more fun months!!
Don’t confuse the fact that I just rapid fire spit out some pretty fucking awesome moments with this whole leadership thing coming without some less glamorous moments. Because it is not all warm fuzzies and sometimes we get it totally wrong and I hope you all feel comfortable to hold us accountable if you do have any qualms so we can all be better! Despite the difficult moments we all have, I still believe that the connections made and the fact that every single Wednesday and Friday morning there will be people waiting for you to come join the workout is pretty magical. OR if you happen to be in any of the other (almost 45!) cities where November Project is you can just drop right in and fit in with their tribe.
Now that I’ve stopped moving long enough to write this and I’m remembering all the rad things we have collectively done this year, it seems appropriate to be closing out this first year of co-leadership and 2017. One of the difficult parts for me has been with all the #fakenews of 2017 and actual real news that I wish was fake, I have sometimes struggled to see the positive. I have spent a lot of time being critical about how and where I spend my time and money. I am quite sure that all of you at some point have also felt these feelings like there are so many negative things happening all around us, how do we use our collective resources for a greater good. It’s important to realize that November Project is a free workout but it is also access and connection to so many wonderful humans. I would love to watch November Project grow more in 2018 and also to use our collective GOOD/HAPPY/RESOURCES for more than hyped up mornings. We plan to ring in the New Year with a clothing/blanket drive for city residents who are not as fortunate as many of us. If you have ideas for ways that NP could give back to our local community, we would LOVE to hear them!
Thanks for being here and showing up week after week. I have loved getting to know so many of you more over the past year and getting behind our sometimes-ludicrous ideas. In the holiday spirit, I hope you all get to spend some time with family and friends. We will be here Friday morning at Patterson Park and next week, WE RACE! Holler at us if you have any questions, comments or concerns, our doors/phones are always available and we love to hear from you!
As Nick Rod would say, let’s all keep takin’ BIG BITES out of life ! And HAPPY EVERYTHING!
Bryson
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Reminder from this AM: We have some bibs to race at the Shamrock marathon in Virginia Beach and would love to give them to someone who was thinking about racing and maybe hasn’t had the opportunity yet. Reach out if you are interested! We will get you the info! But there should be an awesome squad from allover the NP East Coast !
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