Peckham local David Hellard can’t recall exactly how many marathons and ultramarathons he’s run but puts it somewhere “between 60 and 80.”
He’s won marathons on three continents – including being the marathon champion in Somaliland, birthplace of Mo Farah- he’s raised over £100,000 for the Street Child charity, led the London Marathon for 400 metres, and set the Underground marathon record, running to the platforms of 42 tube stations.
It was while racing in a six-day ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert that David first came up with the idea for Caffeine Bullet energy chews, a creation that’s now led to him being featured on the latest series of BBC One’s Dragons’ Den, where budding entrepreneurs get three minutes to pitch their business idea to a panel of multimillionaires for investment.
While running the Marathon Des Sables, dubbed “the toughest footrace on earth” David dropped a caffeine pill and watched it disappear into the sands of the Sahara. “I’d had a shocking Day 2 and I just started to cry,” he recalls.
“This was during a series of challenges I was doing to raise money for Street Child and I knew if I didn’t do well it would potentially cost the charity thousands of pounds.”
At that moment, it occurred to him that there must be a better way to take caffeine during exercise, and so the Bullet was born.
David launched the energy chew out of his Brixton home in 2018. “It was partly made in my kitchen but I quickly realised there are some things you can’t and shouldn’t try to make from home, so I started working with a factory!” he says. “We never had any investment; it’s just grown by word of mouth, and it was me running the company on my own up until this year.”
The Bullets are mainly sold online and in select sports shops. “We’re really well known in the running industry but now we want to become more of a mainstream brand,” David says.
“Although we were created for athletic performance, people want to be performing better in everyday life, and they can use Caffeine Bullets to get the caffeine without having to take in all the “monster” calories of energy drinks or coffee.”
“I take my racing quite seriously and I have a lot of friends who race seriously and I wanted to be able to help them,” David continues.
He hasn’t raced for a record in years but his fastest marathon time was 2 hours 44 minutes in 2013. “Running is my passion and I thought ‘why don’t I do something that helps people who do the thing I love?’”
Runners use caffeine for alertness and because it reduces the feeling and perception of tiredness and fatigue. Caffeine also releases fat cells into the bloodstream, which can be used for fuel, allowing glycogen in the muscles to be stored, which enables running for longer.
“Running is a mental sport,” David says. “In long races, caffeine helps you make better decisions, like fuelling right and figuring out your pace. It acts like a hormone and it means you don’t feel the pain as much in that moment.”
Usually in marathons, runners rely on energy gels or pills for caffeine. “You use caffeine gels towards the end of the race but by that stage you might have stomach issues because you can only absorb so many carbs in an hour,” David says.
“When you swallow anything, it goes into the stomach and is then absorbed into the bloodstream. But when you chew caffeine, it’s absorbed in the cheeks and tongue and absorbed directly into the bloodstream, so it kicks straight in and is more concentrated.”
An individual Caffeine Bullet contains 100mg of caffeine and the effects kick in after around 5-10 minutes, depending on the caffeine levels a person is used to and how their body processes it.
“An espresso has between 50-70mg of caffeine and a can of Red Bull contains 77mg, so while the Caffeine Bullet is not as strong as a can of Monster you get all the caffeine at once, so it’s like one big slap in the face,” David says. “I drink decaf coffee normally so that when I have one of these chews it really hits with full impact.”
The entrepreneur took up running at age 27 after joining the London Hash House Harriers, an international non-competitive running, social and drinking club.
“I’d just broken up with my then girlfriend, I’d started to get man boobs and suddenly I had all this free time,” he recalls. “The Hash House Harriers are the biggest running club in the world. I joined them and that just transformed everything. I fell in love with the joy of running.”
“It wasn’t about training or times, it was using running to explore,” he continues. “Someone lays a trail so you never know where it’s going to go. You turn up at a different pub in zone 1 or 2, and you explore all the nooks and crannies and backstreets of London. There’s no better way to see a part of a city.”
It was while running with the Hash House Harriers that David noticed he was pretty quick. “I’d enjoyed running back when I was at school and have a natural stamina, and I started to enjoy running fast, so I trained for the London Marathon, which I still think is the best marathon on earth,” he says.
“I loved the process, I fell in love with having that control because when you run a marathon you decide everything. You get instant gratification, you see improvements, you track everything. It’s a really personal journey.
“There’s nothing stopping you from being able to run; you can just slap on a pair of trainers and go,” David says. “The great thing about London is you can get to anywhere with a run.
“Running is my punching bag, it’s such an escape for me. It’s my creative space. All my best ideas happen when I’m running. If you’re running a huge amount, you end up thinking about these things that have been in the back of your mind gnawing at you and you give them space and find peace and solutions. Every run is a solo brainstorming session.”
Watch David on the April 7 episode of Dragon’s Den.
Buy the Caffeine Bullet at: www.caffeinebullet.com
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