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Fueling for Ultra Events – Athletes and Cyclists

May 20, 2016 by Hansie Louw Leave a Comment

You could sabotage your entire race or event by incorrect or unknown nutrition. Normally you would take weeks, but in most cases months to prepare for an Ultra event. All of that training could be to no avail if you do not have correct fueling on the way. You may eat something new which could make you sick or leave you without the required energy. You may have the correct fuel, but take the incorrect amount of it and that could make you suffer, even lead you to a “did not finish”.

COMRADES MARATHON

One of these Events on the South African Road Running calendar is the Comrades Marathon with a proud history that spans over 90 years already. Every year athletes line up for the run of 87 km or more from Pietermaritzburg to Durban or from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Currently this race allows you for a full twelve hours to complete the distance which means that you need to complete about 7,5 km every hour on average to complete this distance. For most people this sounds quite easy. The average time that people take to complete a parkrun of 5 km is below 40 minutes which means that the average person should be able to do 7,5 km per hour.

Many people would be able to do 9 or 10 km per hour, so 7,5 km does not sound too big a challenge. It normally is not difficult to do this for an hour or two if you are the weekend warrior. The challenge comes when you go past hour six, seven or eight or later. The challenge comes when you are facing the hills. The challenge comes when you get thirsty. The challenge comes when the protein in your muscles gets depleted. The challenge comes when your stomach turns all acidic.

So how do you get the energy for a 9 to 12 hour race? On a normal day you would need between 1600 and 2000 kcal just to keep going. Now you may add an additional 5000 or more kcal to that. You would normally eat quite a few times during the day.

It is not possible with Comrades Marathon to have your seconds transport your “nutrition” from point a to point b and to point c and so on. There is just way too much traffic and limited access to the route. That means that the runner should carry most if his supplies if possible. If you do target 200 to 250 kcal per hour on a ten hour journey you need to have those ingredients with you.

Herbalife 24 does have a number of products that could assist you and I want to point to Prolong, Rebuild Endurance and the Sport Shake here as some products to give you the base energy. For hydration you may use the CR7 Drive Co designed with Christiano Ronaldo. The Hydrate (H24) is also a possibility but as it carries so few kcalories I am not going to suggest this for the Comrades.

All of these shake products mix well with the CR7 or with water. You just need to find a place to carry them.

In the picture you will see two bottles that you could carry with you while you are on the run. Jonathan Heiss, developer of the Herbalife 24 range carries a bottle with him when running the Ultras (or shorter distances).

The Cr7 drive bottle is the more convenient one as it has a thinner area which is comfortable for the fingers to grip around. The advantage of the bigger Herbalife 24 shaker is that it has two compartments that you could store extra powder mixes in. It is much thicker than the CR7 bottle.

You will also note two plastic bags at the bottom – it surely looks like ‘drugs’, but these are good drugs, though.

I suggest that you remove your CR7 from the sachets or from the container and put them in these softer, watertight bags. You will be able to get about six CR7 portions into one of these bags (17 cm x 10 cm).

You are able to put 3 race portions (your portion for the race is about half a portion of the normal indicated portion if you use it with CR7) of Rebuild Strength into one of these bags and 4 portions of Prolong.

So how do you mix your nutrition?

This will depend on what you are used to and what you could consume easily. If you are used to drink the prolong you would mix half a portion of prolong with your Cr7 or just over half a portion of Rebuild Strength with your CR7.

So you will carry about 2 bags of CR7 with you (11 portions) and three or four bags of Prolong or Rebuild Endurance.

If you have a team along the road they could supply you with some of your load so you don’t have to carry everything.

The best way is to make it as easy as possible. So my suggestion is that you premix each two hours nutrition in one bag. So that means that you will need five or six bags in total and that you add that to your bottle every two hours or so and top up with water. Keep some CR7 separate in one bag as well. If you have helpers along the road, it makes it easier, but be sure to carry some extra nutrition with you. One the day it may be possible that they cannot reach you on the point they planned to reach you. Your helpers may premix your bottles and just hand them to you, but they have to keep in mind that they will not be able to stop every 25 km or so to support you – the road congestion and the route does not allow for that.

FOUR EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTS:

I carry a small amount of aloe (Herbalife) in a very small bottle (50 ml) as my stomach turns very acidic on the long runs. I then drink it when necessary.

Herbalife protein bars (about 10 gram) could be a real life saver when you feel you hit the “wall” and need some protein or chocolate

Herbalife Niteworks helps with making me feel fresher, getting those extra bits of oxygen to the muscles when they tend to get constricted. I carry that in a very small bag (11 cm x 6 cm) and use it in the second half of the race

NRG – this helps for my focus later in the race and is also in a very small bag. I often mix this with Herbalife Instant Beverage.

Why Rebuild Strength and not Rebuild Endurance?

Rebuild strength contains more protein that Endurance and is also in a chocolate flavour. If you find Rebuild Endurance is palatable, you could use that as well.

What about shakes on the road?

You could use the Herbalife Free From Shake or the Formula 1 Sport shake as they both mix easily with water and of course with Cr7. I have used an Ultra mixing Mint Shake with my drink as well. So you could choose.

The reason for Prolong in stead of a shake is for the higher carbohydrate/protein ratio.

NB NB – DO NOT RUN WITH A NEW MIXTURE ON THE DAY OF THE RACE FOR THE FIRST TIME

You need to test this beforehand to see what your body will do. You don’t want to charge to the bushes or look for a portable toilet because your body is not used to this new mixture. Some people need to use more of a certain products and others may need less.

CYCLING EVENTS:

The advantage for the cyclist is that it is easier to carry the nutrition. Here I also recommend that you premix your nutrition and just add the water when it comes to that point or get other bottles at one of the support points. Your support team would then premix for you.

Keep in mind that you want to train your body over time to run more and more on your fat stores. One of the ways to do that is to take in less carbohydrates during the training process.

The most important rule for athletes is to drink before you get thirsty and to eat before you get hungry. When it is a hot day, be especially careful to get enough hydration. Also, at Comrades, ask for a piece of chicken or sausage from the spectators. They will give to you.

FUEL PROPERLY AND HAVE A GREAT NEXT EVENT!

running shirt with “bag”behind he number

NB – for information on where to get the products, please contact your Herbalife Member who directed you to this blog

Co-creating 186 millionaires

May 12, 2016 by Hansie Louw Leave a Comment

When the earth was created, it must have been an “awesome” experience by lack of a better word. I could just imagine God sitting at his dining room table sipping on a glass of his favourite beverage and thinking – this is good!

I get a huge thrill just fixing or fitting something small as my natural inclination is not very practical. I often understand the theory of what must be done, like drill a hole hear, fit a plug and then out in the screw. The actual doing of what I understand in theory is more difficult for me, starting just with getting the right tools ready to be able to go and do the job at hand. Then once I have the right tools it is to get the specific tool for a specific job. So I would need a certain size drill bit for a certain plug and screw. That requires some more preparation. Then I need to make sure that the hole in the wall is not to deep, which is another challenge. I take longer than the normal handyman would, but the sense of achievement upon completion is something that God must have felt when He created.

What did God feel? That is very difficult to try to describe in human terms. What I would have experienced is just this huge thrill to see what will transpire after I have brought something into existence.

So that is one of the reasons why I want to create 186 millionaires. I will not be so bold as to say that I will create them, but I so want to say that I will co-create them. I will co-create them with other people assisting, sure… but the biggest co-creator will be the Creator of everything. If we create it together, then we create it. He will do his part and I will do mine.

Why 186 you may ask? There is no particular reason for that apart from the fact that I chose it. At one point in time I was 187 cm tall, but now it is 186 cm. I also have a financial reason to create these 186 millionaires. I believe that this will create one million for me as well.

Then there is one big reason, perhaps the biggest of them all. If we can teach the 186 to create other millionaires as well, we will win the battle for economic freedom. In the process many other people’s lives will be enriched. That is really what it is all about. The riches I am talking about is definitely to reach out and put people in touch with the Creator and with his creation in each and every person.

So this is what I want to do: I want to co-create 186 millionaires. How? That is the topic of another day.

Clothe our naked president

April 28, 2016 by adminuser Leave a Comment

Not many people would walk around in public totally naked. Not many would dare to do that, but the president of the Republic of South Africa is doing that. He is openly and confidently parading about without knowing that he is naked.

This reminds me of the story of Hans Christian Andersen, published many years ago (April 1837). The full story is quoted below as published at this link

scoundrels

The moral of the story is that the Emperor was naked, but that he was tricked into believing that he was wearing special magical clothes that would go invisible to anyone in his administration that was unfit for his own position. The clothes though was supposed to be “beautiful”. Every time that the Emperor sent one of his ministers to investigate the progress while the so called weavers (they were swindlers that sold the Emperor the lie in the first place) were busy weaving these spectacular garments they would come back and report that it is just so beautiful.

The sad thing was that the Emperor was walking outside until a kid shouted that he was naked and the whole town agreed with him. You would expect that the King would be covered immediately, but he continues to walk on – the show must go on. That is truly the sad aspect.

The story around Mr Zuma is so alike the story of this Emperor. He has advisors that tell him that he is wearing the finest attire possible, that everything is going well. He has ministers that cannot see what is going wrong or what has gone wrong. They continue to say that everything is fine and under control.

Then he has supporters in the church in the country as well. It surely is not wrong to have supporters amongst the churches as such, but it is wrong if the churches do not tell him when he is naked that he is naked. In 2007 Mr Zuma was declared an “honorary” pastor at a meeting of independent churches – “Bishop Ben Mthethwa then put a cleric’s collar on Zuma and declared him a priest.” In an apparent swipe at President Thabo Mbeki, pastor Qiniso Shabalala said, “We want a leader who sees poverty and walks and lives among poverty-stricken people in Nkandla, rather than a person who learns about poverty through the Internet.” This is how it was reported in the media in May 2007

Now Mr Zuma is a polygamist. He has married quite a number of wives and what is laudable is that he is supporting them. What is not so positive is that he is using state funds to support his wives. It is true that some may argue that there is a valid point for being a polygamist from the biblical point of view. This, however, is not the case for Mr Zuma. In the Old Testament Kings like Dawid and Solomon had many wives (Solomon in particular) and this was done mainly for political reasons to retain control over their respective Kingdoms. Mr Zuma does not need this for control. He has total control as the ANC has total control. Churches should just point out that he is naked in certain areas. This is not the area to address now (although for a priest or pastor this would be a vital point).

The most important aspect that the church needs to point out to Mr Zuma is in the area of asking and obtaining forgiveness. The Constitutional Court was clear on Nkandla and there is no need to go into the matter in detail here.

The church could have assisted the president to draw up a response to the country. What Mr Zuma’s response to the country could have been is as clear as this: “My fellow South Africans, I have failed you as I have failed in my duty to uphold the Constitution of our Republic. Although I was advised in many of these areas, I am taking full responsibility for it. I will put measures in place to see that it will not happen again and I will remove the advisors that did not give appropriate advice. I am asking for your forgiveness. Will you forgive me? Will you assist me to get the best advisors from church and the political arena?”

This is telling the president that he is naked, but at the same time clothing him. Is there anyone in South Africa that is willing to cloth the president? Will we continue to tell him that he is wearing the most beautiful clothes? Will others keep on shouting that he is naked?

Hansie Louw

+2782 776 5462

(in my capacity as citizen in the Republic of South Africa)

28 April 2016

evidence of no clothes

The naked Emperor:

Many years ago there was an Emperor so exceedingly fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on being well dressed. He cared nothing about reviewing his soldiers, going to the theatre, or going for a ride in his carriage, except to show off his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day, and instead of saying, as one might, about any other ruler, “The King’s in council,” here they always said. “The Emperor’s in his dressing room.”

In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. Every day many strangers came to town, and among them one day came two swindlers. They let it be known they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.

“Those would be just the clothes for me,” thought the Emperor. “If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools. Yes, I certainly must get some of the stuff woven for me right away.” He paid the two swindlers a large sum of money to start work at once.

They set up two looms and pretended to weave, though there was nothing on the looms. All the finest silk and the purest old thread which they demanded went into their traveling bags, while they worked the empty looms far into the night.

“I’d like to know how those weavers are getting on with the cloth,” the Emperor thought, but he felt slightly uncomfortable when he remembered that those who were unfit for their position would not be able to see the fabric. It couldn’t have been that he doubted himself, yet he thought he’d rather send someone else to see how things were going. The whole town knew about the cloth’s peculiar power, and all were impatient to find out how stupid their neighbors were.

“I’ll send my honest old minister to the weavers,” the Emperor decided. “He’ll be the best one to tell me how the material looks, for he’s a sensible man and no one does his duty better.”

So the honest old minister went to the room where the two swindlers sat working away at their empty looms.

“Heaven help me,” he thought as his eyes flew wide open, “I can’t see anything at all”. But he did not say so.

Both the swindlers begged him to be so kind as to come near to approve the excellent pattern, the beautiful colors. They pointed to the empty looms, and the poor old minister stared as hard as he dared. He couldn’t see anything, because there was nothing to see. “Heaven have mercy,” he thought. “Can it be that I’m a fool? I’d have never guessed it, and not a soul must know. Am I unfit to be the minister? It would never do to let on that I can’t see the cloth.”

“Don’t hesitate to tell us what you think of it,” said one of the weavers.

“Oh, it’s beautiful -it’s enchanting.” The old minister peered through his spectacles. “Such a pattern, what colors!” I’ll be sure to tell the Emperor how delighted I am with it.”

“We’re pleased to hear that,” the swindlers said. They proceeded to name all the colors and to explain the intricate pattern. The old minister paid the closest attention, so that he could tell it all to the Emperor. And so he did.

The swindlers at once asked for more money, more silk and gold thread, to get on with the weaving. But it all went into their pockets. Not a thread went into the looms, though they worked at their weaving as hard as ever.

The Emperor presently sent another trustworthy official to see how the work progressed and how soon it would be ready. The same thing happened to him that had happened to the minister. He looked and he looked, but as there was nothing to see in the looms he couldn’t see anything.

“Isn’t it a beautiful piece of goods?” the swindlers asked him, as they displayed and described their imaginary pattern.

“I know I’m not stupid,” the man thought, “so it must be that I’m unworthy of my good office. That’s strange. I mustn’t let anyone find it out, though.” So he praised the material he did not see. He declared he was delighted with the beautiful colours and the exquisite pattern. To the Emperor he said, “It held me spellbound.”

All the town was talking of this splendid cloth, and the Emperor wanted to see it for himself while it was still in the looms. Attended by a band of chosen men, among whom were his two old trusted officials-the ones who had been to the weavers-he set out to see the two swindlers. He found them weaving with might and main, but without a thread in their looms.

“Magnificent,” said the two officials already duped. “Just look, Your Majesty, what colors! What a design!” They pointed to the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see the stuff.

“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can’t see anything. This is terrible!

Am I a fool? Am I unfit to be the Emperor? What a thing to happen to me of all people! – Oh! It’s very pretty,” he said. “It has my highest approval.” And he nodded approbation at the empty loom. Nothing could make him say that he couldn’t see anything.

His whole retinue stared and stared. One saw no more than another, but they all joined the Emperor in exclaiming, “Oh! It’s very pretty,” and they advised him to wear clothes made of this wonderful cloth especially for the great procession he was soon to lead. “Magnificent! Excellent! Unsurpassed!” were bandied from mouth to mouth, and everyone did his best to seem well pleased. The Emperor gave each of the swindlers a cross to wear in his buttonhole, and the title of “Sir Weaver.”

Before the procession the swindlers sat up all night and burned more than six candles, to show how busy they were finishing the Emperor’s new clothes. They pretended to take the cloth off the loom. They made cuts in the air with huge scissors. And at last they said, “Now the Emperor’s new clothes are ready for him.”

Then the Emperor himself came with his noblest noblemen, and the swindlers each raised an arm as if they were holding something. They said, “These are the trousers, here’s the coat, and this is the mantle,” naming each garment. “All of them are as light as a spider web. One would almost think he had nothing on, but that’s what makes them so fine.”

“Exactly,” all the noblemen agreed, though they could see nothing, for there was nothing to see.

“If Your Imperial Majesty will condescend to take your clothes off,” said the swindlers, “we will help you on with your new ones here in front of the long mirror.”

The Emperor undressed, and the swindlers pretended to put his new clothes on him, one garment after another. They took him around the waist and seemed to be fastening something – that was his train-as the Emperor turned round and round before the looking glass.

“How well Your Majesty’s new clothes look. Aren’t they becoming!” He heard on all sides, “That pattern, so perfect! Those colors, so suitable! It is a magnificent outfit.”

Then the minister of public processions announced: “Your Majesty’s canopy is waiting outside.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be ready,” the Emperor said, and turned again for one last look in the mirror. “It is a remarkable fit, isn’t it?” He seemed to regard his costume with the greatest interest.

The noblemen who were to carry his train stooped low and reached for the floor as if they were picking up his mantle. Then they pretended to lift and hold it high. They didn’t dare admit they had nothing to hold.

So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, “Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!” Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.

“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.

“Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”

“But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, “This procession has got to go on.” So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.

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