One Sacred Hour

This week I want to talk about the Sacred Hour Project we are running at Souplesse Cycling. It is a year long project dreamed up out of my brain, and I felt it needed explaining.

Personal Benefits

At Souplesse we are focused on working with busy professionals who love cycling. As a result, a lot of these people feel really time-crunched - and the first thing to take a hit? Yep, the cycling. Especially now the days are getting shorter (*side note on this later). What’s more is that this actually compounds the stress of being busy. It is like the monk who advises meditating for one hour every day and is asked by a businessman “what about during really busy periods?” and the monk replies with “well then you need two hours”.

So, the Sacred Hour Project is about ensuring that just one hour each week remains ring-fenced as your time for movement - ride, run, walk, ski - I don’t mind what, just move your body. The mental unloading of being able to focus on a single physical activity is extremely powerful. Ally that with the ability to get into the flow state and the endorphins from exercise and now you’re talking about a full-on power station.

By having that (minimum) one hour a week for you, it keeps burnout at bay, keeps spirits up, and cares for your body. Some weeks you will just want to cruise along, other times you’ll be up for some intervals and absolutely smash it - whatever kind of release you need, you can find it through your sport.

Wider Benefits

Following my own train of thought led to me realising people who joined the movement would be logging thousands of hours over the course of a year and it would be really impressive to track this. But not only track this, but to reward this. Not in terms of personal rewards but in terms of charitable giving. We could use the Sacred Hours as a metric; the more hours logged, the more Souplesse would donate to cycling charities. (At the time of writing the charity is still TBC - pending a vote from participants).

Now, by adding in the charitable element, I thought we really had something. It was good for the participants, it was good for us, and it was good for the wider world of cycling. Everyone is a winner.

How to get Involved

If you think this is a mega idea (like me), then head over to: https://www.souplessecycling.com/sacred-hour

Then follow the steps to be guided through the signup. It looks a little like this:

1. Submit your name and email

2. We send you the starter pack goodies (things that help getting out for that one hour a week and the all important pledge card)

3. Share your pledge card on social media to help spread the movement

4. Link your Strava to our hour counter and join our Strava club.

5. Then just keep riding and tag your rides on Strava with #sacredhour

End Notes

*Side note: I absolutely love timeanddate.com’s sunrise and sunset tables that also include twilight hours, perfect for planning what kind of lights I’ll need for rides and when I want to leave to ride in the (semi-)light. Check it out, pop in your location and enjoy: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/

PS: if you want some extra oomph in your riding take our 3min Scorecard to find you biggest current weakness and get a free tool to fix it: https://james-kg7dpynb.scoreapp.com