Winning the Lottery (Sort of).

This week, I found out I won the lottery. But instead of receiving money, I ended up spending some (scratch that: a lot).

Because this lottery was for a spot in the 2016 New York Half Marathon.

Yes, I am incredibly excited about winning a ticket to run 13.1 miles. Odd, I know. But as runners, we know, we're a glutton for punishment.

I had entered the lottery last year, but did not win. I figured, I would try it again, just to see what would happen. I tried my best not to get my hopes up, but knew that if I didn’t get in, I would inwardly be disappointed. I signed up right away when the lottery opened up on Oct. 15^th, but the drawing wasn’t until Dec. 10^th. 

It's was a long two months!

When the day finally rolled around, I was a ball of nerves.

(Clearly terrible at "not getting my hopes up") We were in CT for our annual meetings and I was trying hard not to look at my phone the entire morning. Last year, I learned that the best way to figure out if your name had been drawn was to watch your credit card account because they automatically charge your card. Email notifications aren’t sent out until late in the day, so keeping my eye on my account would be the only way to get an early update. I checked a few times during our break, but nothing. 

Around 11am, I refreshed and was greeted with this:

I WAS IN!

I couldn’t believe it. I'm so glad we were on a break, because I'm pretty sure I squeeled. Loudly. And also preceded to give each and everyone of my coworkers a high five. 

 (And Yes, it is that expensive to run).

I know they were excited for me. But not as excited as I was! I know "non-runners" would not find this news as fantastic as I did, but they pretended to share my joy. (Thanks guys!) 

I was convinced for a good couple of hours that this whole thing was wrong and I'd wake up any moment. I didn’t want to get fully excited until I received that coveted NYRR email that proclaimed I was really in. And for that the status of my account to be updated to “Accepted”

Thankfully, NYRR was pretty proactive on keeping people up to date on when emails would be sent out and when the drawing was complete. There were definitely a lot of sad people on facebook, but it also seemed like their facebook page was flooded with happy, excited folks!

I finally got this email around 7pm that night:

And then when I logged into my NYRR account, I saw this and was officially convinced that I was really in: 

NYRR put out a press release a few days ago giving a bit more information about the race and it made me even more excited to be in than I already was. They said that the race is going to have 20,000 runners in total, with 15,206 runners given entrance through the lottery. There were 36,522 applicants in total for the drawing. (Meaning that only about 42% were drawn). 

Eeeeek! The course is going to be tough with the Central Park hills, but it starts in the park, heads to Times Square and down toward the Financial District. It’s going to be an amazing, amazing day.

I only have 100 days to wait. Better start training!