Road To New York City Marathon: February 2009

The Economic Crises Hits Even The Biggest Event

There you have it. Proof that no one goes unaffected by the present economic turmoil - though I wonder if the perpetrators of the sub-prime problems are exempted - the participants for this year's race is going to be paying more for the entry fees. No change to the USD11 lottery processing fee but instead of the RM700 that I paid for the 2008 race, this year's fees nudged close to the RM800 mark.

Like I informed my running buddies, if there's a time to try your luck at the lottery, this is the year. Many will be putting off travels and large expenses, thus the lottery pool should be smaller. So if you've a budget for it, go for it!

To read the NY Times' report on the rise in race fees, click here.

Labels: Fees

It's All Engineered, Baby

I’ve mentioned before that through the years’ of experience and continuous improvement attitude of the NYRR, the entire NYCM experience you go through as a participant is engineered. Things don't happen by chance, especially key areas relating to runner welfare and experience. It's just too risky for a race like this to hedge its success on luck.

Take for example my experience. The race was last November – 2nd to be specific – but over the last 2 months, I’ve been receiving materials over the post. It started with the Brightroom pamphlet, then the congratulatory letter and certificate in January, and now the official results book. Twice the thickness of your typical Runners World magazine, with better paper quality and chockful of photos and reports and congratulatory messages by the sponsors, plus all the participants’ results, the timing in which this was sent out makes me wonder if this is yet another engineered experience item. Don’t believe me? Why wait till February to send us this book? ¾ of the results were already published in the New York Times’ special edition (granted, not all would have got a copy, nor everyone listed) on the Monday after the marathon, so it’s not for lack of timely data. All FA and reports would’ve been written and photos collated and DTP activities done. So why February? They could’ve sent this out in January itself. Here’s why: Applications are OPEN NOW.

The feeding over the past few months were to ensure that you’re reminded of the race and memories – sorta like keeping the interest and excitement alive. Then wham, February comes, with all the subtle messages you’ve been fed, you'll hopefully make that mouseclick to the official website and submit your lottery entry. If there's any year that may make the chances of your lottery more successful than usually does, this is the year. With the financial crises, less will be making that expensive trip to NYC. Like what the Millennium Group fellas say, "The Time Is Now". If you've the budget for it, go for it!

Here are some of the scanned pages of the book. To view the enlarged version, visit the same entry here.