Let's Find Out Just How Windy The Windy City Really Is!

With all the turmoil occurring in America and the world more generally, you, dear readers, may have missed the biggest news story of the week. After many hours of heated yet bipartisan debate, and desiring to provide our own little economic stimulus package to the city of Chicago, T,H,E K,I,D and I have registered for the 2009 Bank Of America Chicago Marathon! As many runners and non-runners alike should know, the Chicago Marathon has been making news for the past couple of years because of all the chaos that occurred over the 26.2-mile course in 2007. With temperatures reaching an unseasonably hot 90 degrees and despite firetrucks having been called to the course to start spraying cold water and public buses lining the streets and offering an air conditioned respite, the marathon was temporarily halted while officials figured out the best way to 'cool off' the course. Unfortunately, at least one runner died from heat related injuries and, of the 35,867 runners who began the race, only 24,933 finished it. Suffice it to say, T,H,E K,I,D and I continue to hope for cooler weathers as raceday approaches.

Anyways, yesterday, T,H,E K,I,D and I both received an interweb email from New York Road Runners telling us that, while we had each completed the requisite 9 NYRR races during the previous calendar year (I actually completed 13, thereby beating T,H,E K,I,D in yet another of life's little competitions), we did not qualify for guaranteed entry into the 2009 New York City Marathon because we did not volunteer for at least one race as well. You see, dear readers, unlike any other marathon I or T,H,E K,I,D have registered for (including our recent Chicago entries), the NYC Marathon has a lottery entry system as opposed to the more typical first-come-first-served system. Under the lottery rules, all runners wishing to participate in the marathon don't sign up to actually run the race but rather sign up to be eligible to run the race. On a specified day, NYC Marathon organizers will then pick the 39,000 runners at random who will be allowed to compete. Those not chosen must wait until the next year to become eligible again. Of course, if you have been rejected for three consecutive years, you are guaranteed an entry the following year (I want to highlight the requirement of consecutive years, as I forgot to enter the lottery one year and ended up being rejected 4 straight times in the five years I attempted). Members of NYRR can also gain admission by NYRR's aforementioned guaranteed entry process (last year, in addition to running 9 races over the (running) course of 2008, NYRR added the requirement of volunteering at one race as well to the process, thereby forcing someone to attend a minimum of 10 races). It has long bothered me how not-easy it is to run in New York's premiere running event and my frustration was rekindled last week after Chicago's simple (and used by a great majority of all marathons) registration process (to give some shape to this frustration, consider this: in 2007, 103,000 people applied to the NYC Marathon and only 38,000 people were accepted; just over a 36% acceptance rate). Having registered for marathons in 4 states which allow for registration on a first-come-first-served basis (Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts and Nevada (I did not compete in the Las Vegas Marathon but I did register for it in 2005)), I am always finding myself questioning why New York has to do it so differently. Ask an NYC Marathon official and he/she will tell you that the lottery system was established in the 1980s due to the overwhelming and increasing popularity of the event. I am forced to question the veracity of this reasoning since NYC Marathon officials need only look to the Chicago Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon (Washington D.C.), Boston Marathon and a whole host of other big city's thons to see that they are not alone in seeing demand exceed 35,000+. In the end, I doubt there is a sufficient answer to appease my frustrations. As 2009 slowly continues, and with the opening of the New York City Marathon's lottery registration only a few months away, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in my opposition of the self-proclaimed "greatest city in the world's" not-so-great marathon policies.

That all being said, wish myself and T,H,E K,I,D good luck as our training begins for our October 11th meeting with the streets of Chicago!