We Are Wild (5ummit Thoughts)

5ummit weekend juxtaposed the new and the old.

The new: Water bottles. Calf cramps. Full tour PRs. Friends from other tribes. Friends from your own tribe. Tattoo tan lines.

The old: Harvard Stadium. The Mothership tribe. The NU Boathouse. Sara Wild.

The weekend consisted of moments, combining to become a three-day lifetime of growth for the co-leaders and the tribe members. Moments where your arm hair rose, your heart beat a little faster, your legs shook a little more than usual, your eyes welled up and emptied. Moments where in a tight hug from a stranger, you sensed that they could feel it too – the “it” that defines our movement’s existence. The “it” that wasn’t originally intended or possibly imagined. The “it” that started in Boston, and just now was validated through the thousands that gathered on these historic grounds.

There was a moment in the stadium on Friday where one-by-one, fifty-by-fifty, we sat down, leaving one person standing. Sara Wild. Newbie Number One. In that moment, my mind raced through a thousand thoughts about this movement, and that moment became a welled-eyes moment. That moment unleashed emotions that morphed into one another in only a few seconds, and convinced me that indeed – This Shit Is Good.

 

Excitement. I had read about Sara in the NP Book. I had heard how she showed up alone, and ran the Harvard stairs with two strangers. How she had continued to show up, day after day, week after week. How her curiosity started the ball rolling that has turned into an unstoppable boulder. Even the excitement I felt seeing such a courageous woman filled with blind faith gave me goosebumps along my biceps and down my spine.

Awe. Awe that someone so fearless exists, was in my presence, and felt, not arrogant, but humbled to be acknowledged. Then, from Sara, this awe went generally to everyone around me. I began thinking about all of the fearless people who showed up, not knowing what they had gotten themselves into, and continued to show up every week. And if you praised them for showing up, they would be humbled, and brush it off just as Sara had.

Disbelief. How has this improbable, almost impossible, gathering happened? How has this thing changed lives and made so many people so fulfilled and happy? How can we all understand this movement and its purpose without having been there when it started? What is it that makes November Project, November Project? And how can that knowledge be translated into a message spoken on a subway or typed in a text that will draw one more Sara Wild into the masses?

Sara Wild is Newbie Number One, but we all decided to show up without knowledge of what we were getting into. We showed up, expecting a workout and walking away with lifelong friends. We’ve found confidence, self-love, significant others, quads, dormant childlike energy, positive body image, and our people.

Maybe we weren’t there when Sara Wild showed up. Maybe we first showed up in 2015, 2016, or 2017. Maybe we have yet to show up. But we are just as Sara Wild as Sara Wild is. We had to believe that showing up was worth it. We had to choose to test out the waters of early morning staircases and burpees. We had to keep showing up and we had to find the reason why, no matter what other people think, we knew that NP was important to our health and our happiness. We had to fight through doubtful conversations with people who just don’t get it – the people who question our choice in time investment, who see that we have become happier than we ever could, and still don’t understand, who wonder why we give so much to this “free workout group”. We had to fight with ourselves, answering “can I really give more than I did before?” and “is giving more really worth it?”. We had to talk with the people who love us, late at night, when we thought we took on too much, allowing them to convince us that we do make a difference, and should continue to do that.

We are all Sara Wild. We answer that tweet or that Instagram post (#virtualvibes) with our bodies, turning an online invitation into a physical witness to what this movement is. We talk about it to our friends, we debate it when we feel like sleeping in, we struggle, we cry, we hug, we laugh. We build it every day. We build it with every conversation. We build it with every good decision. We build it with every push-up.

5ummit will forever stick in my memory as the weekend that rekindled that spark that’s been continuously burning in my heart and in so many hearts for months and years. It’s okay if our individual fire turns into embers and burns more slowly for a while before we add more fuel. It’s okay to have doubts and questions, to have bad days or mornings where you want to #justnotshowup. Those moments aren’t moments to throw in the towel and lose faith in the movement. Those are moments to call a kindred spirit who has felt the same way as you: to talk it through and gain insights into why they’re here and why you should be too. Those moments are moments where your brain can sprint through emotions, raising the hair on your arms, and making you remember why you were Sara Wild a long time ago. These moments are what remind you to keep building this movement so others can have moments too.

We’ve shared a lot of moments. Keep showing up. Keep making moments.

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