Capetonians Andrew Espin and Robert Graham are among 214 competitors from 38 countries taking part in one of the world's most gruelling endurance races, RacingthePlanet Namibia 2009.
Espin and Graham are joining fellow Capetonian Ryan Sandes, a surprise winner of the 2008 Sahara leg of RacingthePlanet's Four Deserts race series.
Each of the races, staged each year in the Gobi, Atacama, Sahara and Antarctic deserts, sees competitors running 250km over seven days in some of the world's most challenging environments, while carrying all their food and equipment. RacingthePlanet also holds an annual roving race, which takes place this year in Namibia from 17 May.
Espin and Graham, who are running a staged race for the first time, are sponsored by QlikView South Africa, the local representative of global business intelligence and analysis software company QlikTech.
They are also using the QlikView software to track and monitor their training. “We're tracking our food intake, energy expenditure, weight and heart rate as well as our times, distances and the elevation we run at,” says Espin. “Our coach Ian Waddell uses the information to fine-tune our training programme.”
“We've discovered that it's actually extremely difficult to eat enough to match our energy expenditure,” adds Graham. “Keeping a daily record helps us to know when it's time to get extra Vitamin B shots or increase our protein intake.”
Both runners say QlikView has provided much clearer, more detailed information than they would have been able to get otherwise. “In theory, we could do all this with a spreadsheet, but in practice we also have jobs and lives and there just wouldn't be time,” says Espin. “QlikView makes it all easy.”
QlikView South Africa's Davide Hanan says the pair is giving an excellent demonstration of QlikView's flexibility. “It's the fastest, most user-friendly business intelligence and analysis tool on the market,” he says. “What Andrew and Robert have been able to do with QlikView shows that it's not only businesses who can improve their decision-making by having better information.”
Espin and Graham are blogging the race at http://www.furtherthanfar.blogspot.com.
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QlikView South Africa
QlikView South Africa is the local representative and distributor for QlikTech, the business answers company. Its flagship product QlikView, named South Africa's top business intelligence tool by ITWeb in 2008, enables organisations of all sizes to unlock the value of their data to make better decisions that improve business results. Unlike traditional BI solutions, QlikView delivers immediate value with payback measured in days or weeks rather than months, years, or not at all. Through QlikView's disruptive, in-memory associative approach, business users have experienced unprecedented success and satisfaction. QlikTech is the only company in this market that offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. QlikTech grew by 50% in 2008 and has more than 10 500 customers in 92 countries and over 700 partners worldwide. QlikView South Africa was named QlikTech's Partner of the Year for 2008. For more information, please visit http://www.qlikview.co.za.
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