Who Runs the World? November Project.

Still, November Project is a business. While workouts are always free and tribe leaders never see a dime, Graham and Mandaric are now on contract with the North Face. They divide their time between November Project—setting up new chapters, vetting leaders, and promoting the movement through media and events—and helping the North Face develop its own free fitness series, Mountain Athletics Training, which conditions athletes for outdoor sports. Though the North Face has no say in November Project workouts, it pays the bills for Mandaric and Graham and provides them with “not a small amount” of financing, Graham says, for November Project activities. Coleaders are also given North Face gear.

Remarkably, nobody seems to mind that two guys peddling free fitness are paid for their efforts. There’s been no public outcry from the tribe, who appear to view the North Face contract as a necessary step on the road to world takeover, and the leaders I spoke to don’t seem at all bitter about never seeing their own payday. “This is not a job for anybody. It’s what we all are very passionate about,” McCloskey says. “It’s not ‘Oh, I have to wake up in the morning and do this thing.’ It’s ‘I get to do this thing.’”

Graham maintains that November Project does not have a growth quota, or even a list of target cities. Instead, the desire to grow is fueled by a simple belief that the group’s style of fitness is good for cities and the people who live in them. “People need everything that November Project gives them as human beings,” Saul says. “NP gives people a chance to feel really connected. NP gives people a chance to move and to play and to feel youthful and physical and active in their bodies. It’s inspiring and it’s challenging and it gives people a place to really grow.”

Even November Project’s natural enemies—the people who should hate it most—have few bad things to say. Trainers should be annoyed that a free fitness group draws thousands of people out of the gym, away from the treadmill, and off their yoga mats three mornings a week, 52 weeks a year. Gyms should hate that legions of people are choosing no-frills, 6:30 a.m. workouts over locker rooms with eucalyptus-scented towels. But that’s not the case. Kerri Jesson-Thomas, regional fitness training director at the pricey boot-camp studio Orangetheory Fitness, calls November Project “inspiring.” Dan Fitzgerald, a local running coach who heads his own free run club, says it’s “the gold standard for free group fitness.” Erin Engelson, the assistant marketing manager at run-club sponsor Marathon Sports, says, “They’re definitely not a competitor. We love them.”

Either November Project is a supreme exercise in brainwashing, or it’s really something special.

At first, I wanted to believe the former. Hundreds of people getting up early to run and hug? Spare me. Even Laura McCloskey, the woman who brought November Project to the West Coast, agrees that the antics can be off-putting. “The ongoing joke is that ‘Laura hates November Project,’” she says, laughing. “I would run Harvard Stadium and say hi to maybe two people and leave before the group photo. I was that person, and I still kind of am.”

Still, there was something about November Project’s energy that stuck with me. I had to go back.

After running up and down Summit Avenue and getting blindsided by hugs, I was skeptical of an encore. When I dragged myself to Harvard Stadium the next week, though, things felt different. A startling number of people remembered my name. Somebody approached me, genuinely happy, just to tell me she was glad I came back. Person after person praised me for how well I was doing. Somehow, none of it was creepy. Sure, it was shocking for somebody accustomed to the communal silence of group fitness classes, but more than anything it felt nice. I could see, for the first time, how the tribe becomes your crew—even your adopted family.

It was then that I realized what the movement’s disciples mean when they talk about world takeover. Yes, they’re talking about expansion. But to hear its cofounders tell it, it’s about a lot more than that: “If we were to tear it down today and burn all the stencils and all the T-shirts and dismantle November Project, there’s still a piece of legacy that we leave behind,” Mandaric says. “We’re a group of people that will never shake hands anymore; we’ll go in for a hug. If that’s what we leave behind, that’s pretty fucking special.”

The power of November Project is not only in its simplicity—get out, run, repeat—but in its promise of community. And in an increasingly insular world, that’s the secret to why it might succeed where other fitness fads have failed. Maybe November Project–style free fitness, all ethos and good vibes, will slowly snuff out the big-box gyms and the Lululemon-pushing boutique studios. Maybe every city will someday have a tribe to call its own. Sure, they’re bound to pick up a hater or two along the way. But they’d be far outnumbered by the hugs.