New York City Marathon Opens

Applications to enter the lottery for the 40th running of the ING New York City Marathon will be available at 11 a.m. CST Thursday, Feb. 19 at www.ingnycmarathon.org, said race director Mary Wittenberg, the president and CEO of the New York Road Runners. This year's race will be held on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009. More than 105,000 people applied for the 2008 event. The race featured one of its largest fields with more than 38,000 finishers. Applications will be accepted through Monday, June 1. Results will be posted in mid-June.

If you are not familiar with the New York Marathon's lottery process, all applicants pay a non refundable $11 application fee. (Yes, this means they make $1.1 million just of this fee, which does not include the race entry fee). At this point you enter a lottery and wait to see if you are picked.

You can also run by raising money for a charity which Ryan did for Team Fox in 2007. A select few can actually qualify with a full or half marathon time, but the standards are more challenging than Boston. We do however have at least one that would qualify.

All information about applying including charities, and qualifying can be found online. If you ever have plans to run New York, I suggest throwing your name in the hat now. Runner's don't choose when they want to run New York. . . New York let's you know when it is your turn.

I can honestly say it was the best race experience of my life, and I think Ryan might say the same. The entire trip was great from start to finish. When you are running in New York, you feel special. You can't help but think that most other marathoners around the world would love to be in your shoes when you are waiting for the race to start. It is a tough ticket to get, which makes it feel that much more special. I suggest running it some time in your running life. You will not regret it.