I won the lottery!!

Well, not the Mega Millions $170 million jackpot... but almost as good. Today was the selection date to decide who will be able to run in next year's Massanutten Mountain Trails (MMT) 100 Miler. There were 333 entrants, including myself, applying for one of the 180 available spots.

The starting number of this lottery draw is determined by the last 3 digits of today's closing Dow Jones Industrial Average. If the market closes up, the draw counts upwards. If closes down for the day, then the draw counts downwards. Click here to read more of how the lottery works

Therefore, since my randomly assigned # was 884 I was hoping for the DOW to close upwards with a lottery number of 883, downwards with a 885, or somewhere counted within the first 180 entrants from the lottery starting number.

Sometime after 4:00 pm today the DOW closed down and the last 3 digits were 133, meaning that I am now entered into the 2009 MMT and will have to pay my entry fee before January 5th or else someone on the wait list will take over my spot.

Since this will be my first 100 mile attempt you can imagine how excited I am right now. Tonight I began my training by walking an hour on the treadmill, alternating between a 10 and 15 percent grade every 10 minutes. While the treadmill was angled at 10% I had the speed set at 4.0 and when it was at 15% I had the speed set at 3.5. Good solid workout. I'll have to continue to do more of this and make sure that I'm gettting in good mileage.

Congrats to everyone else I know that was selected today. Dan Fox, Paul Lefelhocz, Roy Heger, Gabe Rainwater, Greg Trapp, Lloyd Thomas. Those on the waitlist but likely to become accepted are Bob Combs, Dave Peterman, and Bill Losey. For the complete list - click here.