Response to mail and request for a ballot.
"We greatly appreciate your feedback, and we are reviewing the entry system for the public places for 2011 and taking advice on ballot entry systems in line with many of the other more established big races.
We hope we can assure you that the website did not crash, hence the rapid sale of the places, but did receive huge pressure from the many thousands of people trying to purchase a place which meant it did slow down and many people did get “timed out†meaning that they had to try again, and again.
As you will have seen, we have a limited number of places for the Half Marathon (mainly due to the restrictions on the timing of the road closures), of which just over 25% are allocated to “public†places. However, although we are waiting on the exact statistics, it seems that many thousands of people were logging on to try and get those places and they did sell out in under 3 hours.
Once again, I’m sorry that you’re disappointed this morning – but very much hope that you will either try to gain a place through the promotion in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, or by choosing to run for one of our many charity partners."
