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November Project: The Book: Inside the Free, Grassroots Fitness Movement That's Taking Over the World - Softcover

Graham, Brogan; Mandaric, Bojan; Daniloff, Caleb

 
9781623366292: November Project: The Book: Inside the Free, Grassroots Fitness Movement That's Taking Over the World
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1623366291 ISBN 13: 9781623366292
Verlag: Rodale Books, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

November Project: The Book is the story of how two irreverent, way-outside-the-box fitness fanatics are flipping the fitness industry on its head and literally making the world a better place, one city at a time. No facility. No machines. Just two dudes and a tribe of thousands. Welcome to November Project’s world takeover.

What started 4 years ago as a simple monthlong workout pact between two former Northeastern University oarsmen in Boston has grown into an international fitness phenomenon. November Project espouses free, public, all-weather, outdoor group sweats that turn strangers into friends and connect everyone to the city in which they live. It’s been described as everything from flashmob fitness to “the fight club of running clubs” and a cult. But November Project prides itself on defying categories.

In November Project: The Book, Brogan Graham (a.k.a. BG) and Bojan Mandaric, in their own spicy, big-hearted words, chronicle, along with tribe member and writer Caleb Daniloff, their fitness movement’s genesis, evolution, operations, membership, “secret sauce,” and future—and along the way, show you how you can get fit and societally engaged. The book also includes illustrated workouts; the keys to meaningful civic engagement; information on using your city as a gym; advice on starting an NP tribe; tips on growing, sustaining, and invigorating membership through social media; and thoughts on the collective power of community.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Brogan Graham and Bojan Mandaric formed a brotherly bond on the Northeastern University crew team. Through their continued passion for fitness, this high-spirited duo have tapped into today’s ever-increasing need for human connection in the face of rampant technology, declining public health, and global instability. Graham lives in San Diego and Mandaric lives in Boston.

Caleb Daniloff is a contributing editor to Runner’s World magazine and the author of Running Ransom Road, a memoir. His work has appeared in numerous outlets, and he has received multiple awards, including a nomination for a Pushcart Prize.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1

THE NEWBIES

5:45 A.M.

Maria Cesca wasn't sure this was such a good idea. Her husband and sons thought she was nuts. Her flight had landed late the night before and she was rolling on 3 hours of sleep. But here she was, at 5:45 a.m., shivering and bleary-eyed in a deserted bus stop at the corner of Harvard Street and Commonwealth Avenue in Allston, a gritty neighborhood in west Boston. A cold rain was lashing the stop signs and the wind swinging the street lights. The 48-year-old Florida warehouse manager was nervous as she peered down the empty boulevard while scanning for the number 66 bus. Not a soul or machine in sight. She bounced from foot to foot, trying to keep warm, no idea what lay ahead.

All because of the big guy.

On a recent trip to Boston from her home in Coral Springs, the Brazilian- born Cesca and her 23-year-old son Pedro, a graduate student at Boston University, had been running the Esplanade along the Charles River. They stopped to take a selfie with the iconic MIT dome across the water in Cambridge as a backdrop, moving the camera this way and that, trying to get the angle just right.

"A big guy stopped running, approached us, and asked if we wanted him to take our picture. I answered yes, thank you. The big guy took the photo and asked us where we work out, then started telling us about something called November Project. I was so surprised with his kind gesture, taking his time to take our picture and talking with us. In South Florida, people are always in a rush. I went to my son's apartment and looked up November Project at the computer."

Cesca didn't have a chance to check out the curious group during that trip, but found herself in Boston the following Thanksgiving week. She thought about the big guy again and emailed him, asking whether the workout was still on for the next morning despite the monsoon beating down on the city. Within minutes came the reply.

"We always train. The weather is only an excuse for those who decide to NOT show up. Also, the early morning is harsh on the well-rested and the sleep- deprived. 1/2 the world is 'tired.' Pop out of bed and go intro yourself to Bojan tomorrow. I'm training with our November Project group in San Diego tomorrow morning. The tribe is strong. BG."

Finally, Cesca spotted headlights sweeping the lacquered asphalt, the beams clouded by mist and sliced by furious lines of rain. The bus stopped and the doors hissed open, water dripping off the hinges. She climbed aboard and paid the fare. It was just her, the driver, and two men sitting in different rows. As she stepped forward, she noticed the men were dressed in striped leggings, fluorescent wind jackets, and running caps. Cesca wondered if they were headed to the stadium, too. She took a seat, making note of the storefronts out the window, paying attention to the route.

One of those men was 46-year-old Nicolas Flattes, a sales associate at True Runner, which had just opened a store in Newton. A technical rep from New Balance named Sara Wild had recently visited the staff and told them about a local social-fitness group, that it represented a fresh direction in running, and was even the subject of a Runner's World cover story. Flattes thought it sounded weird and crazy, but interesting. He knew Wild was a sub- 3:05 marathoner and a one-time professional soccer player, so "my first impression was that the group might only be for ultra and elite athletes. I thought I'd have no place there."

But he also thought that some quad work might speed up his recovery from a calf muscle tear he'd suffered while training for his second half-marathon. The leg injury, however, was the least of his pain. The previous year, his 11-year marriage had collapsed and it was still raw to the touch.

"The relationship went up in smoke as if it never happened. We had two children, a six-year-old daughter and a one-and-a-half-year-old son. She told me to move out and get my own place. It was a complete shock. Our marriage had been rocky and we had moved from Boston to Vancouver in the hopes that things would get better, but they only got worse."

After his ex-wife gained full custody of their children, Flattes found himself shut out, even by one-time friends. Numerous attempts to see his kids failed. Exhausted and worn down, he went home to Boston to regroup with family and figure out his next move. Five months later, he was nervously jostling on a city bus on his way to a strange stadium at the world's most prestigious university. "I had no idea what was going to happen," he said.

The bus whined to a stop across the road from an iron-gated athletic com£d, across the river from Harvard's main campus in Cambridge. Flattes followed a short, tanned woman and the other man down the steps and back into the wet blackness. All of them headed in the same direction. They smiled shyly at each other and walked between two brick columns. Were they even allowed to be here? Through the rain, Cesca and Flattes could make out points of light bobbing a few hundred yards away, headlamps of runners going up and down.

"It was a magical image," Cesca recalls. "It looked like the lights were flying. Everything was new. The rain getting in my eyes was so cold. I could hear some voices but I couldn't see the people yet, only the lights."

6:07 A.M.

They passed the end zone of the football field and rounded the corner of the gray concrete stadium. They found an open archway that led into the lower cavern. A number of bikes were chained to the wrought-iron fencing, rain-beaded helmets dangling from the handlebars. Flattes could make out concrete columns and staircases leading up to a square of bruised sky. He was chilled and glad to be out of the rain. "I made my way up the back stairs to the top of section 37 and put my bag in the driest place I could find. Then I saw a guy run up at top speed, stagger behind the wooden bleachers, and throw up. I thought, this must be the place."

Nervous, Flattes then made his way down to the group gathering at the bottom, all arms and heads, writhing on a metal landing that overlooked the northern end zone. It looked like 100 people at least. He was impressed. Clouds of breath rose here and there, mingling, vanishing. A shirtless Asian dude was wearing a swim cap, goggles, and Hawaiian board shorts. An older man was barefoot. People were chatting and laughing and hugging; others kept their heads down against the pelting rain. Flattes looked across the artificial turf, emblazoned with a red H in the middle, toward the goal posts and scoreboards. He scanned the red Ivy League championship banners that rung the stadium's upper portico. The most recent national title was dated 1919. This place was old, he thought.

Built in 1903 and shaped like a horseshoe, Harvard Stadium was designed to conjure a classical Athenian coliseum, complete with an upper colonnade and gated archways. Inside, the 37 seating sections are each terraced with 30 rows of concrete benching. At ground level, gates give way to the field. You can almost picture lions being released to eat the Christians or hapless professors denied tenure. One writer described the arena as "the aristocrat of American sports amphitheaters."

When it rains, the stadium smells earthy, like history, and, fittingly, it has a claim on several firsts. It was the first stadium built for U.S. college athletics and was the first permanent--and largest--reinforced concrete structure of its time. But perhaps the arena's most famous first was as midwife to football's forward pass, a development that not only saved the game, but pretty much shaped the NFL we know today.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, football was a hot running and kicking game on college campuses. But it had morphed into a blood sport, a mash-up of rugby and bar brawling, with...

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Verlag
Rodale Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1623366291
ISBN 13 
9781623366292
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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