After finishing the Tel Aviv Marathon with a new personal record and feeling great I couldn’t wait to register for another marathon. Although my heart would have liked to run another marathon a week later my body needs a little more time.
When I got home I immediately started to think about which marathon I should run next. The easiest would have been to run Tiberias again in January. But after completing it twice I wanted something else. I was talking to Jessica about it, telling her how the Berlin marathon had already filled and how the New York City Marathon was still accepting applications for another few days. She told me I should register and worst case scenario, I don’t get in. There are plenty of other races. So I registered/applied for the ING New York City Marathon knowing that I had very little (8%) chance of getting in.
As a backup I decided to join a few of my friends and register for the Amsterdam marathon. But since then, and more so as time went on I had the feeling I’ve had the very few times in my life I’ve bought a lottery ticket- the exciting I might be lucky fantasy. I knew it wasn’t realistic, but the daydream was fun.
The Lottery date was set for April 27th so when I got up I went to check my email. There was no message from the New York Road Runners Club so I went to the NY marathon web site, which was down until after the lottery at 10:00am (EST). I kept checking my email to see if maybe I’d gotten in but no message arrived. When I checked the web site again, it was up so I logged in and discovered a “Not Accepted” status. I wasn’t very disappointed, since I hadn’t really believed I get in. But there was a little streak of sadness as the dream faded away.
I am still happy I registered since according to the NYC marathon site if you have been denied entry three times you automatically get in the fourth time. So I have two more to go.
The Amsterdam marathon is in no way a consolation prize. Listed by Runner’s World as one of the top 10 marathons, it is considered a good fast marathon. Now all I need to do is train hard and try to figure out where I go next with my diabetes management.
