I read about the lottery. It sucks!
Damaris
As part of the 2024 London Marathon, I am fundraising for VICTA, a charity that helps blind and visually impaired children. My mentor while in law school, Jim K (a blind attorney), has been a huge inspiration and an example of courage and perseverance. Please consider donating.
Fundraising Page
I ran the Chicago Marathon in 1995. Registered by mail. You know, hand written form, envelope, stamp. I think it cost me 40 bucks.
Man, times have changed.
Skirt Runner
Maybe in the future, if Chicago continues to use a lottery system, they should look at how NYC does it. In NYC, if you become a member of NYRR (organization that organizes the race) before the end of January in a given year, run 9 NYRR races that year and either volunteer at a 10th race, or donate $1000, you gain gaurenteed entry to run the NYCM the following year. A nice way for locals to be able to get in without having to do the lottery. Of course, this is no help to out-of-towners.
Anyway, good luck to those still hoping to get into the Chicago marathon, and good luck to those who are in and running it! I am not running a marathon anytime soon, just popping in the thread to say hi.
PRs: 5K- 28:16 (5/5/13) 10K- 1:00:13 (10/27/13) 4M- 41:43 (9/7/13) 15K- 1:34:25 (8/17/13) 10M- 1:56:30 (4/6/14) HM- 2:20:16 (4/13/14) Full- 5:55:33 (11/1/15)
I started a blog about running :) Check it out if you care to
hop, hop, hop...
I figured they would have to do a lottery this year to close it but the anger and entitlement attitude is just unbelievable. Who cares if it's your first. It's one of the World Majors. Personally I would like to see them go to a system similar to Boston, although not so strict qualifying times. Maybe just proving you've completed a marathon at least once? Once the seeded corrals fill then they could open the rest for lottery or whatever.
MM #8764 / HF #6535 / Double Agent #668
PRs: 5K - 27:43, 10K - 57:14, HM - 2:06:18, FM - 5:22:42
~How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were supposed to be?~
Personally, I prefer the system of the first come, first served. I registered for Berlin and MCM as soon as they opened registration, knowing they get full. But a good system like that with a website that won't crash is good.
I've got mixed feelings about that. For ME, yes I would agree with you, but I don't know that it is as fair for everyone else. There are folks in occupations that just can't be in front of a keyboard the second the registration process opens -- surgeons, food servers, pilots, etc, etc, etc and it seems to me that they should also have a fair shot to get in.
But, to tout myself, I DO hope they give some preference to streakers, since this will be my 6th this year.
Are we there, yet?
I ran the Chicago Marathon in 1995. Registered by mail. You know, hand written form, envelope, stamp. I think it cost me 40 bucks. Man, times have changed.
More than you might imagine. When I registered for my first marathon, which happened to be Boston, I mailed in my entry two weeks before the race and I think the entry fee was $3.00. They did not require any prior experience or qualifying time, though they did request that you certify you had trained sufficiently to run sub-4:00.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
I took the day off because I knew reg was going to be a nightmare but I imagine many people that want to run it aren't able to. Regardless they will have to come up with a better method before next year. Possibly a queue method where you're basically in line. Refresh the page and get booted to the back.
I've got mixed feelings about that. For ME, yes I would agree with you, but I don't know that it is as fair for everyone else. There are folks in occupations that just can't be in front of a keyboard the second the registration process opens -- surgeons, food servers, pilots, etc, etc, etc and it seems to me that they should also have a fair shot to get in. But, to tout myself, I DO hope they give some preference to streakers, since this will be my 6th this year.
So, anyone joining us via the lottery? Damaris, did you get in? (I forgot you got in on the first round)
You're running it naked?
Dave
Boston's qualifying times aren't terribly strict. Honestly, Boston's times mostly just eliminate people who want to "run" marathons rather than dedicating a year or two focused on training to "race" a marathon. New York has some tough qualifying times.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
Active.com is fine for smaller races but I'm surprised a major marathon uses it.
Drink up moho's!!
Pretty sure that Active.com is the largest online registration company which is why large races use it.
http://www.runnersworld.com/races/behind-chicago-marathon-registration-crash
The Technical Side of the Great Chicago CrashRegistration for the Chicago Marathon opened at noon on February 19. Almost immediately, users began having issues. This happened for several reasons, says Eric McCue, general manager of sports at the Active Network.
“The first point is we ran registration on our older system,” he says. “The second point is we ran it at a point in time when we were upgrading the environment the application sits on. It was spread across two different environments. The combination of that fact with the very high demand caused some communication errors within the system and caused some slowness, which ultimately caused a poor customer experience.”
Bottom line is that it sounds like piss poor planning for active.com