Fuel the Story: How Laura Watts Fuels Badwater 135 in Extreme Heat
Updated: Sep 6
This is Fuel the Story — a series of real conversations with runners and triathletes about how their nutrition has evolved.
Not one of them nailed it from day one. Every one of them is still learning, still evolving their approach and still getting things wrong sometimes. Because nutrition isn’t something you just look at once and forget about — it changes as your training, goals, life and experience change. We’ll talk about what’s worked, what hasn’t and what they’ve learned along the way, because your nutrition doesn't need to be perfect to make a difference to your performance — it just needs to keep improving.
I'm really pleased to welcome my friend and fellow runner Laura Watts to kick off Fuel the Story, a new series of conversations with runners and triathletes about their nutrition.
Laura has run Badwater — widely considered one of the toughest ultramarathons in the world — five times. So if you've spent this UK summer struggling with the heat, this conversation is for you.
You can watch the full episode below.
What is Badwater?
For anyone who hasn't come across it before, Badwater 135 is a 135-mile ultramarathon that takes place in Death Valley every July — the hottest place on earth, at the hottest time of year. It starts at Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level and the lowest point in the United States, and finishes at Whitney Portal, the highest point in the contiguous US. Along the way it crosses two mountain ranges and around 14,000 feet of elevation gain, almost entirely on hot tarmac.
The race starts at night, so runners go into it already somewhat sleep-deprived. Temperatures in Death Valley itself sit above 40°C after dark, and by the time runners reach the Panamint Valley the next day, it can reach as high as 54°C.
Only 100 runners take the start line each year.
The biggest mistake from her first Badwater
Looking back at her first attempt, Laura is candid about how underprepared she was on the nutrition side:
"I didn't even actually have any proper electrolytes. We just had this tub of rock salt... looking back, yeah, I just didn't really have a nutrition or hydration strategy at all."
She was relying mainly on the salt naturally present in whole foods, with no real electrolyte plan behind it — something she now recognises as genuinely risky given the physiological demands of a race like Badwater.
How her hydration strategy has changed
Fast forward to this year, and the approach is unrecognisable. Laura now does heat chamber testing at Chichester University ahead of hot races, where her sweat rate is measured to work out exactly how much fluid and electrolytes she needs each hour.
On the course, she uses handheld water bottles and is met by her crew every one to three miles, alternating water and electrolyte drinks. She's conscious of the balance between the two — too much water without enough electrolytes risks hyponatraemia, which is a serious condition that ended Sophie Power’s Badwater attempt this year.
Hyponatraemia
Hyponatraemia happens when sodium levels in the body are too low. Although it can be caused by a medical condition, in endurance sports it is caused by drinking too much water, dangerously diluting the body’s sodium levels.
When this happens, the cells in your body begin to swell, and this is what causes the health issues. Hyponatraemia can be deadly if not treated. Unfortunately, the symptoms overlap with many others that endurance and ultra-endurance runners encounter in long races: nausea and vomiting, confusion, loss of energy and fatigue. So it is important that you get your hydration strategy right.
Whole food, gels, or both?
Laura's approach has evolved through some difficult experiences. In one previous Badwater, she was sick around 70 times during the race — unable to hold down food or water. Since then, she's been searching for gel products without maltodextrin, which she believes was contributing to the nausea.
This year she used Protein Rebel gels for a lot of her fuelling, alongside real food — blueberry muffins, mandarin oranges in juice and salted crisps. Towards the end of the race, though, whole food became difficult to manage, and she switched to sipping gels in small amounts rather than trying to take them down in one go — a technique suggested by one of her crew that worked well for her.
Using caffeine to get through the night
Caffeine plays a significant role in Laura's race strategy, particularly overnight when fatigue and sleep deprivation set in hardest.
Her approach combines caffeine tablets (roughly one every 12 hours), a low-calorie energy drink called Celsius sipped every couple of hours via her crew, and — outside of Badwater specifically — a caffeinated gel roughly every four hours.
"Caffeine is my friend... it's obviously like a legalised performance enhancer, as well as keeping me awake."
This lines up with what the research shows more broadly — caffeine doesn't just wake you up, it lowers your perceived effort and helps keep decision-making sharp late into a race, which matters just as much as the alertness itself when you're 20+ hours in.
I've written more on the science and dosing behind this in Caffeine for Endurance Athletes: Does It Really Improve Performance.
Heat training at Chichester
Ahead of Badwater, Laura completes around ten heat chamber sessions at Chichester University, each lasting 60–90 minutes, with her core temperature monitored throughout (via a rectal thermometer). The aim is to hold her core temperature between 38.5°C and 39°C for the session.
She credits this training with a range of physiological adaptations — increased sweat rate, lower sodium loss, lower resting heart rate, and a lower core temperature during exercise — all of which feed directly into her nutrition and hydration planning, since her water bottles are weighed before and after each session to track exactly how much she's drinking.
Her fastest Badwater yet
This year's race was Laura's fastest Badwater to date, at 29:09. Asked what made the biggest difference, she points to one thing above all: the ability to keep fuelling consistently, right through to the end.
In previous years, she'd struggled badly around the 90-mile mark, reduced to walking a largely downhill 50k section. This year, by continuing to take in gels — even in tiny sips when whole food wasn't manageable — she was able to keep running through that same section.
Working with her crew
Laura's husband Matthew crews for her at Badwater and her other races. Their system has evolved significantly over the years — from spontaneous decision-making in her early ultras to a detailed race plan (Plan A, B and C) that Matthew tracks against a race log, recording her nutrition intake alongside pacing.
"Everyone needs a Matthew."
What she's still working on
Even after five Badwaters, Laura is candid that her nutrition strategy isn't finished. She's currently searching for a carbohydrate drink she can rely on without triggering nausea — she used to used to use a Precision Hydration carb drink but had to drop it mid-race this year after it made her feel sick.
Her advice for anyone tackling a hot-weather ultra for the first time
Laura's biggest piece of advice: lean towards liquid calories where possible, since they tend to sit better in extreme heat than solid or stodgy foods that might work fine in cooler races. And critically — test everything in conditions as close to race day as possible, including layering up and eating in the heat during training, not just on easy, cool runs.
What's next for Laura
Laura's next major events include the Self-Transcendence 24-hour track race in September, the Daytona 100 in Florida in December, and the HURT 100 in Hawaii in January — a technical, elevation-heavy race through rainforest that she describes as one she's "very scared about."
As for a sixth Badwater — let's see.
You can follow Laura's training and racing on Instagram @Laura_RunningGirl and Strava (Laura Watts).
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If Laura's story has you thinking about your own hot-weather race nutrition, this is exactly the sort of thing we work through together in a 1:1 consultation — building a strategy around your training, your race, and what actually works for you. |
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