Flying not in New York City marathon

I entered the lottery for the New York City marathon and I did not get in. I am not upset. I'm really not. I had carefully scraped together the $255 required to enter. And I mean really really scraped. I scraped so much so that I was wondering if my choice was more irrational than not. That is a lot of money, at least to me right now. But I was ready.

I watched my email most of the day on March 3rd waiting. I watched others post on Facebook that they had gotten in.  And I waited. In the middle of my many meetings I slyly (or so I thought) checked my email and my marathon account and waited. And finally around 8pm the official notice came. I did not get in.

I thought I would be upset. I wasn't. I simply exhaled. I mean I would have been honored to run it, I watch it on television every year. I have heard amazing stories about it. I would have been honored. And now I am free to look for another race or not.

Once I put it out there that I did not get in people have been sending me links to so many different races. Races that I never heard of before. And that is a good thing. I am feeling the love. I know that my ability as a runner was not diminished by not making it into the race. There were over 80,000 people vying for around 14,000 slots. I think I read the odds were that one in six would get in. This time I wasn't the one.

No worries. I got up the next day and ran. I did not feel any regret or remorse. There are other races and there is always next year.