Day 78
Marine Corp Marathon is one of the revered marathons in the area, and probably is internationally renowned as well. The lottery to sign up for it will open next month. I think I was pretty lucky person when I got a spot in 2017. Some people say it is not as hard as one thinks.
For some unknown reason, I have an itch to run the Marine Corp Marathon again this year. I know there is one itsy bitsy reason why I want to do it. It is a secret for now and I will reveal it later. Well I am just looking for marathon to run…
However, I don’t want to try my luck again with the lottery this time. For those who are like me, the Marathon organizer offers a way to avoid the lottery by awarding a pass (informally called, the golden ticket) to those who finish the 17.75K race to be held next month. The drawback though is this race sells out within minutes of opening (7 minutes). This heightens my interest to secure a spot. So all I have to do is to run this race and I am guaranteed a spot in the marathon. Cool beans.
So yesterday because of the snow day (by the way the snow is almost all gone now, melted), I had plenty of time for this. So at 11:55am I had my credit card ready, my mouse cursor was a click away on the registration link. And guess what!!!? The site crashed. Not just once but many times.
To make the long story short, I did get in after some agonizing minutes (half hour) and secured a spot (i think). Actually, I was finished within couple minutes but the site had problem displaying the confirmation/processing my payment. I sat there kept on refreshing the page, probably making things worse, along with many other people (we vented on the social media). The registration company later posted an apology with explanation that there was a coding error, that prevented the site from using its reserved capacity.
What a party pooper.
Now I want to troll all those who were on the same boat and who have gone through the hoops to sign up. I wonder if there were anyone who signed up because they wanted to run just the 17.75K only and not the full marathon in October. I want to say I am! Trolling indeed. I think maybe there are!!
PS: why 17.75? It was the year (1775) when the Marine Corp was established.
In awe 