Nagoya Women's Marathon 2018: Ballot Results

Last year, on a whim, I balloted for the Nagoya Women's Marathon. I didn't get it but I did get into the Tokyo Marathon 2017 so it was cool. In September, I balloted yet again for the Nagoya Women's Marathon because I really wanted a handsome hot guy to give me a shiny Tiffany necklace after running 42km.

And on 10 October, exactly 2 weeks after the balloting opened, one week after it closed, I got the results.


I. Got. In.

It took me days to properly process the information. It was only on Friday night, after a long tiring day at work that I remembered. I actually got into the Nagoya Women's Marathon, the world's largest women only marathon that holds a IAAF Gold Label status. *silently hyperventilates*

According to their website, there was only slots for 3,000 international participants and they have received a total of 5,226 entries for 2018's race. Similar to the Tokyo Marathon, the cut off time is 7 hours. Hopefully I won't have a repeat of the Tokyo Marathon where I died on a flat course and went well past my PB at my first marathon. Oh, the shame...

Now, because it took me so long to do the payment for the race, by the time I wanted to look for an accommodation, majority of every affordable hotel, hostel and AirBnb were sold out with only rooms for men left. Go figure. So let this be a lesson to you....don't procrastinate on booking your accommodation. In fact, as soon as you ballot for any race, secure your accommodation on websites like Booking.com that lets you cancel FOC later in case you didn't get the ballot.

Now excuse me while I silently panic over how am I going to plan my training and this trip with so much uncertainty hanging over me.