Marathons and the Quest For Gold

On Wednesday, April 25th, the ING NYC Marathon selected the names of the non-guaranteed entrants for the 2012 marathon.  I have never ran the NYC Marathon and decided to put my name in the hat on the odd chance that I might be selected as a first time applicant.  In true lottery fashion I also paid an $11 non-refundable "application fee".  I did this on the first day registration opened in January.  So I have waited patiently for four months to learn my fate.  The NY Road Runners made a huge promotion of how the runners would be selected during a 30 minute kick off event broadcast live on the web on April 25th.

So on Wednesday I settled quite comfortably down in front of my computer and browsed on over to the nyrr.org website.  After several long minutes of refreshing my browser (because apparently the website wasn't prepared for the amount of traffic they encountered and crashed) I finally was able to bring up the webcast.  I won't even go into how unorganized, un-"eventful", or horribly done the entire production was.  Suffice it is to say that it was 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back.  And to top it all off, they did not display the names of those selected or provide any information that would lead you to a link for searchable information, etc.  The whole thing felt like a sham.  Too bad for one of the largest marathons in the world.  You would think they would have this down by now.  It was finally announced (through Twitter channels no less) that credit card processing was taking place and that it could take until 10:00 AM the following day before anyone would have confirmation.  Following the advice of some friends, I logged into the profile I had created on the NYRR site.  There it was in glowing pixels on my screen - Marathon registration status: Not accepted.  Bummer.

I used to wonder what this dude was screaming about.  Now I know he is screaming in frustration.

They were kind enough to send me a "sorry about your luck" e-mail on Thursday at 9:11 PM.  I appreciated the prompt notification of my rejection (sarcasm).  I've had non-confrontational, passive-aggressive girlfriends who have been quicker and more direct with rejection than these guys.  Epic fail, fellas.  Reallly.

On a more positive note, I have been quietly, steadily pursuing my Gold Level membership with Starbucks.  Since December of 2011, when I loaded the very cool Starbucks app onto my iPhone, I have been striving for that elite level.  On Tuesday evening I was presented with this bit o' news when I drove up for a evening triple espresso:

Holy Crap!  Almost there!

So, as of Wednesday morning I am now officially a Gold Member.  Take that any way you'd like.  I should have snapped a screen shot of my "congratulations, you're an addicted sucker" notification, but I was too busy bouncing off the walls on my caffeine high.  But if anything positive came out of Wednesday, it was my successful attainment of an empty, meaningless goal; one that represents an average investment of $150 over the course of the last 30 visits to Starbucks for coffee that I most probably could have made at home for a fraction of the cost.  But then, I wouldn't get the cool designer cup and cardboard sleeve thing.

Tomorrow is the KDF Marathon.  I have already laid my gear out and the Garmin is charging up.  Considering that I am going to be out of bed at some ridiculous hour in the morning, I really should go to bed.  Big day tomorrow.  Wish I had a more positive feeling about it, but I'm really kind of numb at this point.  Perhaps I'll feel differently once I'm in the middle of the chaos at the start line tomorrow.  We shall see.