Today, I won the lottery. Not the lottery where I get to quit my job and move to the Bahamas, but the lottery where I get to spend another summer sweating on the B&A trail. I got into the NYC marathon!
This is not an outcome I expected. I signed up for the marathon lottery on the day it opened back in November. At that time, the organizers were predicting that 8-12% of the lottery applicants would be accepted. I paid an $11 processing fee at the time and had to click through about 10 messages telling me that that fee was NON-REFUNDABLE.
Then, in January, I got an email from the NYC marathon people. Apparently, the applicant pool grew so large that they dropped the percentage of lottery applicants expected to get in to "well below" the previous 8-12%. They even took the unprecedented step of offering lottery applicants the chance to withdraw and get our money back.
I stayed in the pool because I wasn't really looking to get in for 2011. The NYC marathon has a policy that, if you get rejected in the lottery 3 years in a row, you automatically get in for year 4. So, my brilliant plan was to keep entering every year and run the marathon by 2014. I was hoping to land in 2012 or 2013. So much for brilliant plans!
Obviously, I knew that this could happen when I signed up for the lottery. When I submitted my entry, I promised myself that I would run if I got in. So, it looks like I'm running. I'm still trying to adjust to the idea of adding marathon training back into my already-packed summer, but I am still excited. NYC is one of my very favorite places, and I can't pass up the opportunity to experience it through an event like the marathon. On my drive home from work today, I put on "Empire State of Mind" and almost shed a tear.
See you on November 6th, New York City!
Maybe we can run together sometime this summer (when you're doing a shorter run!) Seems like with the odds against you this race is meant to be!!
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