OK, I've had a few days to simmer down and more importantly - think. I definitely understand and support a lottery. I guess I would just prefer if there were two options; a lottery and a qualifying standard. I guess my anger is more that the whole selection process is left up to a lottery. I think that the NYC marathon has a good system in place where the majority of it is through the lottery, yet you can still get in with qualifying times. Hawaii, I feel should have more lottery slots. Yes, that's right. I respect that race so much and I wish more would have the opportunity to experience it. Selfishly, I was voicing out my emotions immediately following receiving the news that I didn't get selected. I'll find something else to do this season, and I don't want to come across as whining or complaining. I try to post my raw emotion here in this blog because I feel this is my journal and years from now it will depict what I've done. I'm assuming it also makes things a bit more interesting. I promised myself to never filter or edit my thoughts/beliefs. So basically I'm over it and I'm already excited about a few new ideas. I need something each year that makes me reach or else I feel bored and stale, so I've got a few things brewing.
One of the things I'm really excited about regarding Leadville is that two of my best friends got in. Baker and Kenny will be toeing the line in August and they will both do great and hopefully I will be out there to support them. But I will certainly have them race ready for this experience.
On another note, I'm fired up about the Olympics. Vancouver looks really amazing. Watching the opening ceremonies, my thoughts were a) this is kind of cool, then b) this is boring, then c) man, this makes you appreciate that much more what they did in Beijing, to d) this is kind of cool again. I'm a patriot and will root for anyone US, although Bode Miller makes it very hard to root for him.
Cheers,
EH
1 comment:
I'm of two minds about the lottery thing. If the race is a championship of some kind, there should a strict qualifying standard. Or else if there is a ton of people that want to enter, make it entry by lottery only.
That said, life is more complicated than that. One of my buddies works for a company that provides sponsorship for the Boston Marathon. She being a runner, she was offered a place in the race, without having to qualify. She was quite conflicted about it, since she had always wanted to enter it, and could reasonably aspire to legitimately BQ. She ended up accepting.
One thing I don't understand is why race organizations haven't figured out how to transfer race numbers. At IM races there are always more entrants than places, and some people can't attend because life happens. Given reasonable advance notice limitations, why can't they refund a big chunk of that entry money, and go on to the first person in a waiting list? They're going to get another fee, and it can't be that complicated to modify the database.
Post a Comment