Richmond rider Luca Olias is midway through his phenomenal challenge of 100 classes in 100 days. We caught up with him over the Easter weekend to find out how he's getting on...
I went to my first RIDE class at Digme Fitness back in July 2017 simply to try something new with a few friends from work. I would've never imagined that the sounds of Rudimental and John Newman alongside the voice of our instructor, Ben, were planting the seeds that would lead me to my greatest exercise-based challenge.
After seeing the amazing achievements of Digme instructor Charlie during his 42-class mission over Sweat Week, not only was I inspired by the effort, discipline and dedication to his challenge, it also made me question whether a personal challenge of my own would help me in my own journey. I then wondered what my biggest issue is with fitness? Consistency.
I have always found it easy to do short bursts of highly intense workloads across a number of areas in my life (workouts, blog writing, work habits etc.) but creating positive, sustainable habits has always been just a nice idea that I cannot build upon in reality. It felt like that now was the perfect time to change all of that.
After 12 classes in 12 days, I wondered whether I could do 50 spin classes in 50 days (RIDE, BEAT or PERFORMANCE). In a moment of joy and somewhat insanity, the words then left my mouth that I was going to try to do 100 classes in 100 days. Now here we are!
At the time of writing, I have done 40 classes in 41 days and the experience itself has been wildly insightful and thought-provoking. I'm also a little tired to say the least.
You can probably tell at this point that my inner dialogue is consistent with regards to how regularly I check in with myself, but the interesting part for me has been just how inconsistent I am with what I am telling myself pre-ride, mid-ride and post-ride.
It’s swung from ‘Wow, I am so tired!’ to ‘I feel amazing, let’s go!’ as well as everything in between. Sometimes I have even felt both extremes in the same class.
The ability to control the voice in my head saying that I am tired or ignoring soreness in my body and persevering has been such a great character development as I continue to push past my previous boundaries. All in the name of riding an indoor bike.
The best thing that I have found about Digme Fitness as a company and a place to work out has to be the phenomenal men and women who work across their studios.
Over 40 days, I have been in 15 different instructors’ classes and not only has the standard been exceptionally high across the board, there has been incredible variety within those classes. Whether it has been personality, the structure of the class or even music selection, each instructor has been unapologetically themselves in their classes, which has made them all compelling as well as boat loads of fun.
All the staff do a fantastic job when it comes to building an inclusive, friendly and supportive community which has made the experience so much more enjoyable amongst the aches and pains up to this point. They’re all absolutely amazing!
I want to thank anybody who has been supportive over the past 40 or so days. I admit that I haven’t always been upbeat, but I really appreciate the positivity that fills those studios from everyone and it’s been really helpful to be surrounded by that energy.
My personal goals over this 100-day time period is to reach 1,100 miles travelled and to average 220 watts across all of those classes. There is that accountability again, so if you see me over the next 60 days then feel free to remind me of that. Whether it’s a pat on the back or a kick up the bum, feel free to say hello. My last class will be a Beats n Cleats class in Richmond on Friday 25 May – I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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