nike women's marathon

In 2008, Nike instated the first lottery entry process for the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco, CA. This marathon is becoming so popular with individuals and teams like TNT, that they really didn’t have a choice but to follow the lead of the ING NYC Marathon which is also on a lottery entry system. I was lucky enough in 2007 to catch the end of the open registration and ran my first marathon. The registration process was very similar to how the Chicago is done; register within the first 4 days and you’ll get in, after that it’s more than likely sold out. To even out the playing field, popular marathons are starting to implement the lottery: sign up to put your name in a hat, and the officials select racers at random, notifying them about a month later regarding whether or not they got in.

So why go to a lottery system? There are a couple of reasons. First, it’s a simple matter of making registration fair for everybody running. Of course, officials always save a few spaces for various charities, and then there’s the competitive and elite runner spaces. But for the rest of us, we enter the lottery and cross our fingers.

There’s also a bit of a taboo about switching from open registration to a lottery system in that the marathon becomes even more popular though the exclusion paradigm. Similar to the implementation of a qualifying time making the Boston marathon exceedingly popular, switching to a lottery gives marathons a certain kind of clout with runners, I guess exclusivity increases curiosity.

And then there’s the technological drive behind the decision to make the switch. On opening day of a marathon registration, some servers just can’t handle the rush of runners eager to claim their spot along the start line. The lottery certainly relieves this bandwidth stress.

About a month ago I signed up for two lotteries, the Nike Women’s and the ING NYC Marathon. (Taking my chances with the lottery) These marathons are back to back weekends, and now that I’m official for the Nike Women’s, I’m curious if I’ll be trying out to become a Marathon Maniac. Good thing I’m young and take my daily vitamin! I’ll find out about the NYC Marathon in a few weeks.