On the Ground at Cocodona: The Future Is Female and It's Coming Fast
Could the gender parity of 200s make them more exciting than 100s? And how a storytelling strategy is a big part of Cocodona's ascendance.
I picked the perfect year to go see what it’s all about. Just six years old, yet, it has quickly become one of the marquee events on the trail running calendar, an unprecedented ascendance. The Cocodona 250 is not the first 200+ race by any means but it’s the first to unlock some big differentiators. Here’s why you need to be paying attention.
I had to fly home for family obligations before the finish. This race is LONG after all. My flight home was taking off when Rachel had just a few miles to go. Horrible timing. I bought the wifi on the plane, no questions asked. As she got within 5 miles the livestream had 20k viewers, then 25k, then 30k, and ultimately a whopping 41k were watching the livestream during Rachel’s finish. That’s a big deal. This whole time the chat was flying entirely too fast to read. So. Much. Energy.
Throughout my time on the ground in Arizona, I kept feeling like I had gone back in time to my first Western States trips when Tim Olson and Ellie Greenwood were setting course records. Or maybe I had jumped to the more grassroots UTMB days before edgy bonfires were replaced with light tunnels. Despite being just year 6 it felt like I was witnessing a familiar point along that growth trajectory. It’s just 2.5x farther.
Cocodona’s success aside, this year’s race brought a big win for Rachel, a win for Norda, Precision and Tantrums but, far more importantly, it was a huge win for women and the sport on the whole. I’ll go into how this might trickle down but first let’s look at the storytelling strategy that has been unique to Cocodona’s growth.
