Friday 28 October 2011

"It's the fifth golden ticket and I've found it!"


If you know where the Golden Ticket reference comes from, then you'll know how excited I just might be.

A few weeks ago at the prompting of RunEngland I entered the National Lottery Ballot for the Olympic Run, a 5 mile event, through the Olympic Park and ending inside the Olympic Stadium. It was a ballot but there were a few questions of the heartwarming kind so I told them about running in the original Olympic stadium at Athens Marathon to raise funds for the East London Community Foundation (which supports community centres in the 2012 Olympic's catchment area) and running in Berlin's Olympic stadium for another charity. I don't know if that meant anything but I also told them I don't play the Lottery so perhaps that evened things out.

Anyway, form submitted and duly forgotten about. But on the way home today a quick glance at twitter showed a fellow runner expressing disappointment that they had not been selected for the Olympic Run. My brain did a slow U turn as I realised: "I have entered that, but I haven't checked my emails today." I was literally on the tube home and fast approaching a tunnel, so while I couldn't download the lovely cheery message above I could read the words "Congratulations – you have secured a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." And yes I did the big Charlie Bucket whoop for joy and grinned like an idiot all the way to Finchley Park. Which for my fellow commuters is an awfully long way to endure a grinning fool.

Only 5000 of us will be running the course and I know thousands more entered. Gutted for those whose parents and partners got in but they didn't or vice versa and for those who really wanted this but didn't get it. Reading some of the disappointed tweets makes me aware how much this is a super privilege and I will savour every moment of it. I'll also tweet and pic and share the experience as much as possible.

Roll on 31st March 2012.

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