I wish these stupid lotteries would institute some kind of method where the more years you have entered the higher your chance in the lottery. That wouldn't work for me this year, but I imagine there are people with multi-year attempts that haven't gotten in and so many get in on the first try. That would be more fair to give those in past years 2 entries for each year they have applied - if they've never gotten in before. Just a thought.
It's definitely hard. New York is one of the largest races in the world if I am not mistaken. There is the New York 9+1 correct? so that is another option. Maybe they could offer up another option similar to that aside from the lottery?Lotteries are so tough. It's all completely random, and it doesn't matter how many years you've applied, and those year after year rejections that some people get are so heartbreaking.
That said ... I honestly can't decide if this is a better method than something like Disney, where people get in on a first-come first-served basis. Something like this might sell out really quickly, which isn't fair to people who can't register at a certain time. But the lottery is also not great because there's no guarantee and
There's really no good way to do registration for a race like this.
It's definitely hard. New York is one of the largest races in the world if I am not mistaken. There is the New York 9+1 correct? so that is another option. Maybe they could offer up another option similar to that aside from the lottery?
Yep, there's a 9+1 program (I'm 20% done with it for next year's race), but that requires you to be able to show up at 10 races in NYC over the course of the year, which doesn't really work for people outside the NY area.
I think the idea of offering another "guaranteed entry" program is interesting (although I don't know what it would be), but that would then make getting in through the lottery even harder because there would be fewer spots in the lottery. It's certainly an interesting thought.
Granted her deadline to decide was the same as the lottery entrance deadline. Still bizarre IMO.
The deadline for guaranteed entry is also the same as the lottery deadline. My guess is that they have a set number of spots and need to know how many people are guaranteed spots so that they know how many lottery spots there are.