Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track podcast.

I'm your host, Finma Lanssen, and in this episode we are talking with Cole Watson,

a professional trail runner for Hokka, based in Folsom, California, preparing for the 2023 Black Canyon 100K.

Before we get started, a big thank you to Rabbit for sponsoring this episode.

Rabbit makes the best trail running

apparel. So if you're looking for a new kit and want to support the show in the process,

use code single track 20 at checkout on their website for 20% off your next order. With that,

let's get started. Cole Watson, great to have you back on the single track podcast. Thank you. It's good to be back, Finn.

Last time we chatted, it was roughly a week before this past year's Western States and haven't checked

in sense. So curious about how the day went. And I guess more importantly, like what were the lessons

learned and what are you applying to the current race at hand from that experience?

Yeah, I mean, as you know, Western States is an incredible experience.

And it might sound a little crazy, but I had 80 really good miles and I executed for that

long.

And then the last 20 or so, it kind of fell apart. But I think it was mostly

like nutritional operator air. I was just taking in a little bit too much rock taint too frequently.

And it is what I trained with, but really I hadn't done it for more than 13 hours,

because why would you do a training run that's that long before Western States

and then still be able to recover?

But I did a lot of five and six hour training runs with this makeup of, you know, I think it was two scoops of rock tane and an 18 ounce handheld.

And it was just a little bit too much for me to stomach taking that in every hour.

And so I got to the river and then I started throwing up and all my energy

...