Please Pick Me!

What you see above is what stared me in the face for the majority of my Wednesday. You see, April 29th was the day of the 20913 ING New York City Marathon lottery. Twitter was up in one Outlook tab on my computer monitor, my credit card's recent transactions were on a separate tab, and the marathon's registration page were on yet another tab. I have never hit F5 on my keyboard more times in my life (thank you Katherine for informing me of that refresh shortcut).

Last year at this time, Abby and I had guaranteed entry to the NYC Marathon (her first full). I had failed to gain access through the lottery three years prior, so I had the golden ticket to run through the five boroughs of the Big Apple in November of 2012. She had run 9 of the NYRR races the previous year, plus volunteered for one.

As you may be aware, when I traveled through hell and high water (literally) to Manhattan to run the race with her, it was cancelled while we were in the expo picking up our numbers. The aftermath of a hurricane left the city unable to host the event and I returned home with fresh legs and lots of disappointment. I chose the option to get a full refund from my registration fee for the 2012 race because I couldn't justify forgoing it and paying an additional registration fee (not to mention double travel costs) for guaranteed entry this year.

Honestly, I've never so much wanted to see a random charge show up on my credit card statement. This was that one exception. But seeing as how I have once again been denied access to cross the finish line in Central Park, I take solace in knowing that the race will happen again next year. And come next May, I'll be sitting at a computer again anticipating a lucky strike in the random draw.