The race season is kicking off and registrations are starting to open up. I had done a few races last year but this year I was going for a full race schedule. The other night registrations for several events were to open online at 7 pm. I was excited to start registering for my first few races of the year and apparently so was about a million other cyclists. As I tried to register there were long pauses on the website and timeouts. Eventually the site stopped responding with 3 races in my shopping cart. ARGH!!!
What was supposed to be a quick few minutes online and then a rare evening that I was free to hang out with the family turned into me being chained to the computer, afraid that I would miss out on registration. What do I do? The family is waiting on me and I have already burned 45 minutes into this endeavor. I decide to wait a few hours and try again. If the race is full, so be it! I can’t waste any more time on this.
About half an hour goes by and I ask my wife should I try one more time really quick. She says to give it a go. (Her favorite motto is: “He Who Hesitates Is Lost”) I was in luck as the site started responding again, it remembered my cart, and I was able to complete the transaction in less than 5 minutes. I heard that a few hours later many of the race categories filled up, so I guess I might have dodged a bullet there.
So now I know that race registration is a race in itself and I have to be on the ball to make sure I can get registered for all of the races I want to ride this year. Thankfully there is a member of the Body Concepts racing team that does a great job giving us all heads ups when race registrations are opening up. I have found myself eagerly awaiting his emails. (Many thanks, cycling brother!)
