Boston Baby!

I never thought I would run a marathon, let alone Boston.  It seems like an immediate goal for most marathoners and I too had that in mind after hearing so much about it.  Boston. Boston. Boston. Blah blah blah.  Happy to say I qualified December ’09, but unfortunately it was just a few weeks after registration closed (I had no idea before I even finished the race that it was sold out).  At the time I was disappointed because Boston 2011 seemed light-years away.  Well as most of us adults know, time doesn’t slack – it speeds by, almost too fast, and I found myself already looking into hotel accommodations (booked!) and flights (still need to do) before registration even opened.  I had read somewhere that Boston was expected to sell out well before NY (11/07/10) so not wanting to wait another whole year, I set a few alarms, Google calendar reminders and even someone else’s alarm to make sure I was up at 0600 on the 18^th to register.

Scurrying to my computer, I immediately felt the lag of the website and upon filling out required fields on the registration page and hitting submit, I was taken back to the registration page again.  I repeated this process over ten times before stomping my (healthy) foot on the floor and heading out the door to work.  At work I had the same issue until finally I tried with Safari and got in – Phew!

*Happy Dance*

So now I am in – well, they still have to verify my qualifying race and time and I don’t expect that to be an issue.  Heck, I don’t even know if I will make it to the starting line that day – I could get injured again or something but I am still excited…qualify for Boston…CHECK!  This excitement lasted only one whole day because as luck would have it, I receive this lovely email from Marathon Tours:

“We are sorry to hear that Boston online entry had closed out online before you had time to register.  As the official travel agency for the Boston marathon we are working to secure race entry to the 2011 Boston Marathon for clients who have a name on a pre-existing hotel reservation with us for the2011 year prior to October 18, 2011 and who are currently qualified to participate in the race.”

Just lovely!

Talk about a low blow, I already imagined how much I wold hate Heartbreak Hill and I could now understand the frustration of many other runners who qualified for 2011 but couldn’t get in because the race sold out in less than 8 hours – really, really sad.  I immediately called Marathon Tours and was informed that the webmaster had sent out the email too soon and it was supposed to say, “If you were unable to register…”  THANK YOU running Gods, I will just pretend I never got that that email – I am still in (I hope).

What really excites me more than anything is that I will be able to see my cousin Amy who lives with her family in Millbury.  We are nearly the same age and only met once when we were five years old (we didn’t get along very well that ONE time) and have a lot of things in common, one of them happens to be running.  She is excited to have me in town and we can finally catch up on life and each other.  This is the exact reason I will be in Boston regardless if I race or not.

This is what I looked like the last time I saw my cousin.