Entry for 2012
Entries opened on 6th February and will close when the 4000 limit is reached - in 2011 that was reached within 4 days, and the online allocation was filled within just a few hours.Entries are split between 2000 online entries, and 2000 by post. The Online entry form was made available from this page in 4 stages during the course of 6th February 2012, with each stage allowing 500 entries before closing - last year most online entries were taken by people who stayed awake till stupid times early in the morning so this year we thought it might be a good idea to stage entries so that you didn't need to set your alarm clock! Neither system was ideal and perhaps next year we'll need to introduce a pre-booking system with a random lottery to decide who gets access to enter online.
In 2012, online entries opened at 10am, 2pm, 4pm, and 9pm and closed after receiving 500 entries in each batch....although we knew it would be interesting, we didn't quite expect things to move quite so fast.... each batch was filled within less than 2 minutes, and we were processing entries at a rate in excess of 250 per minute!
Sadly, all the online entries are now filled so you will need to enter by post now, but be quick, almost certainly the postal entries will be full by the next postal delivery.
There is a finite limit to the number of transactions per second which can be handled all the way through our website, then to the payment processing site, then from there to the banks, and then all the way back again. Inevitably some of you will have experienced time-out problems as transactions got held in queues, however there is unfortunately nothing we can do about these bottlenecks - if you've ever tried to get served in a pub in Newcastle when last-orders are called you'll recognise the problem!
The paper entry form is available here and will also be available from many sports shops, notably our sponsors Start Fitness, and also from athletics clubs. Postal entries will be processed on a first come first served basis as drawn out of the post sacks, but please note that postal entries must be received BY POST. Personal deliveries to the postal address won't be considered - the race secretary simply cannot respond to many hundreds of people arriving at his door trying to deliver entries!