If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
I’m now 0-3 in 100 mile race lotteries. The first two were Western States and with my odds below 5% in both years, I was not expecting to get in. Things were different with Massanutten Mountain 100 though as there were only about 240 people entered for 214 spots. I was a lock.
Unless I wasn’t.
I looked up the lottery results the next morning and couldn’t find my name. I clicked over to the waitlist and had to scroll all the way to the bottom before finding my name (26th of 28). The MMT100 has an ordered waitlist and since I didn’t have any preferences, I ended up at the bottom. Sigh.
The race website has a lot of historical information on their lottery and waitlists and I dug into the details to determine the likelihood of getting in. While there are no guarantees, it looks like I have a good chance of getting in. Everyone on the initial waitlist has gotten in the past couple years and those were slightly larger waitlists (43, 44). I’ve even moved up 2 spots over the last couple days.
But there’s still a chance I won’t make it in, so like any good ultrarunner, I’ve developed a backup plan: Old Dominion. The race is a couple weeks after MMT100 in the same area and even shares some of the same trails. And it’s a course I absolutely fell in love with in 2017. So while I’m bummed I haven’t gotten into MMT100 yet, there’s a small part of me that’s hoping I don’t get in.
And who knows. Maybe I’ll be luckier the next time I enter a lottery.