Entry Info Page post: So where does that leave us? While we believe there was a reasonable chance at having a first come, first serve registration on the 1st, that is probably no longer the case for the 13th. Simply, most everyone knows what happened and now all those that missed or forgot registration completely last time will be in the mix this time. As a result, if the number of people registering for a Race / Wave / Category is more than the number of spots, and those people are all registering at basically the same time, it is in effect a lottery. There is no denying this and this should not be news to anyone. This brings up the question of why registration is being done over for some Races / Waves / Categories. Again, for us the answer is simple. Active.com servers were crashing and those who were as far along as trying to pay were being kicked out. At the same time, those getting into the registration process later, and in some cases much later, were getting all the way through. Or, to use a more traditional lottery analogy, this was the equivalent of having your name drawn as a winner and just as your name was about to be announced someone runs up and takes the envelope and replaces it with someone else’s. That is not right and that is why we could not accept the first registration. Take first come, first serve and lottery out of it. The Active.com servers were crashing and that was not acceptable for either system. Another question that is often raised is why start some Races / Waves / Categories over and not others. There is a balance between trying to fix something and causing a lot of unnecessary re-registrations. The Ascent Wave 2 and the Marathon were full. The Ascent Wave 1 was at 46% and most other categories were at less than 15% full. We felt that being less than 50% full was a good crossover point.
What to expect on March 13th: Finally, links to the relevant Active.com pages can be accessed below. They are currently not displaying on Active.com simply because we want as many people as possible to read this first!
Update time: 3/5 @ 12:00PM MST Active.com apologizes to the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon and its participants for the registration difficulties experienced last week. As a result of several popular events all opening registration at the same time, we experienced unanticipated server loads resulting in system delays. We have identified the problem and have added processes and systems to ensure it does not happen again. Active.com has been part of the running community for more than a decade and nothing is more important to us than the events and runners. Our mission is to enable people to find events that improve their quality of life and then facilitate their participation. When we fall short of that goal, we not only let the event and runners down, we let ourselves down. In response to the difficulties last week, Active will be making a considerable financial contribution to four organizations; Friends of the Peak, Barr Camp, the High School Aid Station Challenge and Bear Creek Park. On behalf of everyone at Active, we hope you continue to live a healthy, active lifestyle and have a great race at this years Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon.
Sincerely,
The Decision of the Board:
Therefore, the follow actions will be taken using data provide by Active.com:
All races / waves / categories were either less than 50% full, or full.
As a result, the following will be “Do Overs”:
The following will pick up where they left off - “Pick Ups”:
To provide sufficient time for everyone to prepare, the registration date for the “Do Overs” and “Pick Ups” will be Tuesday, March 13, 2007. The start times for registration will be as follows:
General notes:
Entry Status lists can be found here. Thank you for your understanding, The Board of Directors of the Pikes Peak Ascent and Pikes Peak Marathon
Update time: 3/3 @ 4:30PM MST
Update time: 3/2 @ 4:45PM MST Before I say anything about our meeting let me make one thing PERFECTLY CLEAR: This talk of “running the race anyway” has got to stop! Yes, it is a public trail and no, it is not closed to answer the questions. But the forest service does in fact count bandits and such against us. (see the last sentance of this story). Please do not jeopardize the race for everyone just because you are upset now or will be upset later. If you want to do that there are about 360 other days of the year where no races/events are planned. Go for it! The meeting... Sorry for the delay, but after the meeting we had to tie up some issues with Active.com and, dare I say it, I went for a run! At any rate, it was a very productive meeting but a few more knots need to be tied. Therefore, in order that we all (including you) might take a little break from this over the weekend, we will finalize our decision on Monday morning and double check with Active.com that it is doable. We will then have the whole thing laid out right here at 12:00 Noon MST, Monday, March 5th. This is NOT when what we decide will take place!!! There will be at least a one week timeframe between the announcement and the implementation so that plans can be made. Next, Active.com, as some have you have already noted, has begun the process of refunding duplicate card charges only. Next, well next next, those of you placing calls to check the status of your registration are missing the point that it may (or may not) matter! Those on the support lines may not have a clue what is going on here. We will all know on Monday at Noon! That is all we can say right now as it would not be right to say more and then find out Monday that somthing has changed. Please, do as one poster suggests and go for a run. I know I am going for another one because it’s no secret that twice a day keeps the competition away:-)
Update time: 3/2 @ 10:30AM MST Not much to report but as one poster put it, “We are biting our nails, give us an update.” I can report that the board has put a lot of time into reading your posts. We feel this is your race, not ours so your input is important. Some of the positive thoughts have really touched us! Indeed, of the almost 1,000 e-mails we got yesterday there has only been one really nasty one where someone dropped the F-bomb on us. (I guess there is one in every crowd) True, we can’t say that we have read them all yet but we are very grateful that most of you have been very understanding. Frustrated yes, but understanding. Thank you! At any rate, we have our next special board meeting today at 12:15PM. Stay tuned... PS Some additional notes have been added below in a section called “Notes about even older updates:” As you will see this was done out of the interest of full disclosure as these items are being considered when it comes to our decision.
Update time: 3/1 @ 7:30PM MST As for that, the board more than understands there are many ramifications no matter what we decide. A good concept would come up only to have dozens of concerns as to who would be impacted. All I can say for now is we are waiting for tomorrow for additional information from Active.com. Specifically, we need to figure out how many of those that got through are duplicates, triplicates etc. so that we have real numbers to work with. In the meantime, we are taking some time to think things through and read more comments on the message board. To that, an important point is being missed by some in that we have a set limit from the Forest Service. There can be no extra waves, additional races, more runners etc. Indeed, we are working under a warning after going over our limit two years ago. If we go over them again they will lower our limits. No one wants that! So while we are considering a lot of options we have to work with the fact that we can not put more than 1,800 on the mountain for the Ascent and 800 for the Marathon. In closing for now let me say that again we are all very sorry. Our friends, family and you, our extended family, have been hurt. We are hurting. There is no way we can fix all the hurt. There is no reason to even pretend we can. Now, I realize that none of this is an answer for you but that is simply because right now we don't have an answer. Stay tuned and keep running! PS These updates are how we are going to communicate with you. We simply can not handle the amount of e-mails and phone calls we were getting. Again, we apologize!
Update time: 3/1 @ 4:15PM MST
Just a few of the things that are surfacing:
Update time: 3/1 @ 12:35PM MST
At this point phone calls and e-mails do not help. Again, we are working on it!
Notes about even older updates: (added 3/2 @ 10:30AM) But an important part to these notes on the older updates is that we have to consider them. Those that were on Active.com getting carpal tunnel syndrome hitting refresh probably never saw them and some in fact got in after they were posted. Likewise, some who came to the our site first may have seen them and therefore may have never even tried to register. We feel both points are valid and will be factored into our decision. Again we want to assure you that we are spending a LOT of time on this.
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