For the past few years, the Beach to Beacon 10k has had problems with their registration system being unable to handle the crush of people all trying to register at the same time. This year, they managed to find the right solution for keeping everything operational.

The first 600 slots opened up yesterday for Cape Elizabeth residents, with another 4,000 slots opening up this morning at 7:00 for general registration. All 4,000 slots sold out in 8 minutes, with 3,000 of them filling up in the first 4 minutes alone. In fact, over a quarter of the registrations (1,010) came in at 7:03 alone.

The registration process was much smoother this year without the annual grumbling about how unresponsive the website was. There were also far fewer duplicate registrations, which means that there will be far fewer frustrated runners this year.

There are still 1,750 slots open for the lottery, which will accept entrants until March 22, and those selected in the lottery will be announced on March 23. There will be a limited number of slots available for fund raisers and through local clubs and organizations, and similar to last year there will be a transfer period that opens up for a month a little closer to the race.

Did you get in this morning? Or are you entering the lottery? If you registered, how was your experience? Did everything run smoothly?