The Rollercoaster that has been Miwok

So as some may know I went to register for the Miwok 100km a couple weeks back and was stunned to see that it had sold out in less than half an hour. I put my name on the wait list and, on advice of someone who knew the race director, emailed to see if there was anything she could do about letting any more people in. On the race website it even said for people to email her for "special consideration". I send an email begging for a spot and held off on signing up for the 50 miler in Olympia to see what happens. A week later we get this email:

Thank you all for your interest in and dedication to this beautiful and challenging event. I truly wish that I could accept all applicants into the race, but our park service limit is 250 runners. The race filled in less than fifteen minutes this year, and I will likely go to a lottery system for the 2009 race.

Although I would like to e-mail each of you individually, with over 200 e-mails from runners who overslept, got lost on their early morning run, had a power outage, or could not get through on active.com, it is more expedient to send a group e-mail, rather than make you wait even longer for a response. There was a lot of understandable frustration with the active.com system. We've all had experiences with technological failure in other areas of our lives, and despite my working together with active.com in the weeks before the registration date to forestall any problems, several glitches nonetheless occurred. I will be reviewing all the data in the next week, and the waiting list will be posted by February 1st.

At the Western States lottery, slips of paper are pulled from a box so your entry depends purely on the luck of the draw and we accept that as "chance". At Miwok 100K registration this year, it appears that the moment in time when you clicked your mouse determined whether you got through successfully or not - surely more frustrating that not having the paper with your name on it chosen, but equally random.

So I resign myself to the fact that I'll be doing the 50 miler but still didn't send my entry form. Good thing because a two days after that another email:

Great news - I have been working with the Park Service and they are going to allow some additional spots for the thirteenth running of the Miwok 100K on May 3, 2008.

The e-mail addresses on this list are the top 75 people on the waiting list, in order, out of a total of 289 people on that list. You are either in the race, or in the top 15 on the waiting list and will definitely get into the event when some cancellations occur.

In a few days she'll be sending out a password to us for active.com to sign up. Talk about your ups and downs.
Does the fact that she says the sign-up for Miwok next year will be done by a lottery indicate the craze for this sport or just certain races? I think it's just a chosen few that have gained popularity over the years as being "the race to do" and that there will always be more races that don't sell out and are easy to get into. I might as well do this one while I can then, just in case. Have to change the '08 schedule AGAIN!!