The Lottery Results Are In......

After much funfare on Wednesday morning/afternoon, I was left not knowing whether I was IN for NYC marathon or not.  What I gathered from the at replies to @INGNYmarathon, there was some sort of major failure with the announcing, as we were to "check back later" yet the NYC marathon page said our profile logins would be down until Thursday at 10a.m.  Hmm... ok, so much for all that hoopla I guess!

I started to see that people were "finding out" via credit card charges so I logged on to mine a few times to see if there had been a charge.  Nada.  Interesting enough a few times the Capital One site stalled out on me.  I had to laugh thinking that hundreds of thousands of NYC marathon lotto peeps were probably doing the same thing.  (if not, whatever, just let me have my laughter!)

Later in the afternoon I got an email from Tom saying HE WAS IN! And that the login pages were back up and functioning.  I logged in, and wasn't surprised to see this:

Not sure what I expected the lottery process to be like, but with all of the hype surrounding the announcement I got pumped, and then royally bummed, without even knowing if I was in or not.  I'm sure the huge amounts of lotto entrants and then the number of people that flooded the site didn't help, but I feel like they should have a good guage on that based on previous years, right?  Hmm..  Anyway, by the time I found out I wasn't in.  I didn't really care anymore.  Hohum.

I emailed Jenn and Megan, that this was a dark sign for our Nike Women's Marathon selection that was to occur "sometime the end of the month."  Way to keep it vague Nike.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up to several texts from Megan to "OPEN YOUR EMAIL!  WE'RE IN!!"

HOLY CRAP!  That was the kind of lotto selection excitement I was looking for!  Too funny that they'd come within ~15 hours of each other.

I swear I didn't even ask that they do the graphics in green and gold... but I like it.  :D  So I'll be heading out west for the fall.  I can't wait for a re-do of Philly with two of my favorite girls in the world.  If I could've only gotten in to one of these races, things worked out just the way I wanted.  :)

Now that I have some answers about these two races, I'm left to decide the rest of my fall race schedule.  Suggestions?  Couches for me to come stay on??

Bit By the Bug Yet Again

Perhaps admitting I was in a funk was the cure to getting me out of the funk.  Or perhaps I just admitted I was in one on the tail end of it.  Regardless, no more than a week after admitting to my running friends that I was burned out, and likely taking 2012 off from any marathons, I found myself entering two lotteries....

Nike Women's Marathon

New York City Marathon

The way these things work, is that I'll either get in to both, and have to start selling my body to afford the trips (jk mom!  kinda...) or I'll get in to neither.  And I'm kind of ok with both options.  At the same time that I was being wreckless with my precious monies, I was starting to l-o-v-e running again.  In my second to last week of school of the sememester, I found myself caught up on projects, and even ahead of the game.  Combine that with Kyle being out of town for almost two weeks, and I have SO MUCH FREAKIN' TIME ON MY HANDS.  I've been contemplating doing double days just for funsies (and then I remember that I break... a lot, and put that idea on the back burner).

And as if on cue, my hip hurts this evening after penning this post this morning.  Go figure.  Perhaps some ice cream will cure it.  BRB rehabbing.

Marathon Schedule 2012

I’m a very type A person.  I like to have a plan.  And it always has to be the most efficient and well thought out plan.  So when my spring marathon plans somersaulted last week, I was in a tizzy.  Emails were sent to all running buddies to see what their plans were.  I like to optimize my marathon weekend fun by joining up with runner friends. 

My first plan was Grandma’s.  Kyle has been asking when I’m going to do it (presumably so he can have an excuse to go feeshing in Duluth) and I thought Krista was going to be doing it.  And since it’s so late, I could do a half marathon in May as part of my training…..say… in Brookings!  When Krista confirmed she wasn’t running it, I moved on. 

Lincoln?  Drivable distance for my parents (maybe) and I could probably wrangle Angie to do it.  But meh.  Wasn’t really too excited about it.

So then I landed back on Brookings.  But as the full.  It’s a very small course.  Like 400 for the full and half.  But it’d be cheap.  Just gas to get there and a cheap-o registration fee, and shacking up with Megan.  And the money for Mexican food and margs afterwards, obvs.  And I thought that surely my parents and Kyle could be spectator extraordinaires.  BINGO.

This is how I landed on the decision to do my first marathon in South Dakota.  Might as well be at home when I land my first marathon time that starts with a 3.  J

Naturally after deciding on spring 2012, my mind started to work toward fall 2012.  Since I’ll be doing things el cheap-o this spring, perhaps I could spend some $$ this fall.

Think BIG:  NYC.

I think I’m going to enter the NYC Marathon lottery.  I think I’ve convinced myself that the ideal time for me to run a marathon is in November/December, as it’s typically cooler, and I’m able to train for the majority of it during the fall when it’s cooler.  AKA I don’t drown from my sweat.  Visiting NYC is on my 101 in 1001 days list, and I’m sure I’ll need another Susan fix in a year.  J

If I don’t get in, I think my back up marathon will be Dallas White Rock.  I did the half in 2009, and it was a blast.  Plus I need to go down and visit the family, since I have a new niece arriving in 2 ½ weeks.  I secretly want her to be born at the same time I’m finishing Philly.  Is that too much to ask?  Naaaaaaaaw.

So that’s my plan for the next year.  Who’s joining me???