On Marathons and Earth Day

So, today is interesting for two reasons.

First, the lottery entry period for the New York City Marathon is now closed. The wife and I have decided to do a destination marathon at the end of the season this year and this is one of the two contenders. As neither of us is anywhere near the times you need to be guaranteed a slot, we entered the lottery and now, along with over 125,000 people, we wait to see if we get to race. The race site says that they expect 8% to 12% of those in the lottery will be selected. I'm not a huge fan of those odds, especially as they have a new disclaimer that says the number may well be even lower in 2011 due to an increasing number of applications...sigh. Also adding to the uncertainty, is that we both entered the lottery individually and there is no way to do an all-or-nothing option where we either both get in or we do not. Many races offer this type of registration, but NYC does not. So, the worst case would be if one of us got in and the other did not, as you are required to register (and pay the costly registration fee) if you are selected. Anywho, the drawing is on 27 April, so we've got about a week to go until we find out if we got in. Oh yeah, I did say that this was one of two contenders and we'll do NYC if both of us get in via the lottery. If we don't, well, let's just say we'll be one-upping our game (and distance!) should it come to that. :)

In other news, today is Earth Day. Rather than write something original here on the topic, I'm going to pass on two links because these two ladies have done a really good job with their pieces and you should go read them. Now.

• Mo has a piece in the Columbia Patch about how to make your workouts more eco-friendly. This is a really good piece and I learned quite a bit from it, including about the existence of reusable sweaty-clothes bags. Check it out here.
• The wife has a great piece about water and trash (and asks the great question about why some neighborhoods, including ours, in Howard County do not have curbside recycling when HoCo pioneered the concept (hocoblogs@@@). Check it out here.

There you have it. I should also point out that if you bring a reusable coffee conveyance to Starbucks today, they will fill it with delicious coffee for free. Sweetness. Have a great Earth Day folks.