The London Marathon
Applying for the London Marathon was almost as much an endurance event as the marathon itself. The entry system for the ballot opened at 09:00am on Monday and almost immediately the website showed signs of trouble. I plugged away most of the day trying to get onto the first page of the application form, but the website was having none of it. It was obviously creaking under the strain.
At about 15:30, the website was replaced with a message saying “Due to unexpectedly high levels of demand, the website is temporarily unavailable”. This was no surprise, as there are only 120,000 ballot places available and, if last year was anything to go by, they’ll all have gone in two days. Indeed, a newsletter from The London Marathon sent at 17:30 on Monday confirms that 70,000 people somehow managed to register on the first day.
I gave up trying to apply after 15:30. I did manage to register though – by going onto the website at 06:30 on Tuesday morning.