I read about the lottery.  It sucks!

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.

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 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.

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.

So, anyone joining us via the lottery? Damaris, did you get in? (I forgot you got in on the first round)

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.

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.

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 Crash
Registration 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.”