Field Notes on November Project, a Free Early Workout With Friends
November Project made an early workout with friends a promise: say you'll come, and if you skip, your face goes on its blog. Its history and what to copy.
In this article4 sections
The category page is called “We Missed You,” and its one-line description reads like a note a friend leaves on your door. “If you decided that staying in bed was a better option than working out with your friends (who you promised that you’ll be there) then your face will be featured here.”
That sentence belongs to November Project, a free outdoor workout group started in Boston in 2011. I spent a few evenings in its archive and early press because it answers a question many adults carry around: what can you do with friends that also gets you up in the morning? The best answer I found: a fixed early workout with friends where you have said, out loud, that you will be there. November Project calls that promise “the verbal.”
Entry one: two rowers and a Google Doc
Brogan Graham and Bojan Mandaric rowed together at Northeastern. Per a January 2013 Q&A from Northeastern’s news office, Mandaric asked after a Head of the Charles race how they would keep training. They agreed to work out every morning for a month and logged it in a shared Google Doc. The document’s name became the group’s name.
By November 2012, WBUR reported about 200 regulars at the Friday hill workout in Brookline, three sessions a week at 6:30 a.m., and one workout that drew 300 people, an event the founders marked with an arm tattoo.
Entry two: what makes an early workout with friends stick
The group’s home page describes its method as “a simple sense of accountability (verbal).” You tell someone you’re coming. No sign-up forms, and the price, per the site: “Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch.”
The other half is the blog category. In June 2022 the New York chapter wrote up Baldwin, a corgi who had been given a Monday verbal over the weekend. At 6:28 “those short little legs were nowhere to be seen” in Morningside Park, so Baldwin got his own “We Missed You” post. The tone is teasing, and that matters. Being told you were missed by friends is the opposite of a fine.
Entry three: why mornings, and why weekdays
The schedule is stated plainly: “Always in the morning and always on weekdays. Afternoons are for socializing, weekends are for racing.” Boston’s early rotation was a Monday location, Wednesday stairs at Harvard Stadium (a full “tour” climbs all 37 sections) and Friday hills on Summit Avenue in Brookline.
Given who founded it, the endorphin studies on rowing crews make a fitting footnote.
Entry four: what transfers to a Saturday
Most friend groups won’t commit to 6:30 on a Wednesday. A weekend morning plan with friends is the easiest wake-up commitment to keep, because breaking it means texting someone who is already up. Fix one place and one time that never move, the logic behind plans that run on rails. Some friend groups have held a fixed night for decades. Collect the verbals by Friday night in the group chat. If you want a ready-made route, a Saturday 5k with a barcode already exists in many towns.
If your friends live in other cities, DontSnooze lets the verbal travel: you choose who is watching, and a morning you stay in bed is a morning they hear about.
My last note: Baldwin’s post ends by hoping he and the other four-legged regulars show up again soon. Put that sentence in your group chat on Friday night, with a park and a time under it.