The application period has closed, the tickets are counted, and in 6 days the 2016 Hardrock entrants list (and wait list) will be announced. So it is time, once again, to see just how lucky you need to be to get to the starting line in Silverton next July. (The statistical method is summarized here.)
The "Never" Category:
There are 1315 applicants who have never started a Hardrock and 47 spots in the 2016 race available to them. Last year, the wait list in this category went 9 deep (13 deep two years ago), so I will base my projection of "getting in" as being drawn in one of the first 56 spots (47 plus 9 off the wait list).
1315 applicants, 5480 tickets, average of 4.2 tickets per applicant
1 ticket, 1.0% chance of getting into Hardrock
2 tickets, 2.1%
4 tickets, 4.1%
8 tickets, 8.0%
16 tickets, 15.4%
32 tickets, 28.5%
64 tickets, 48.9%
128 tickets, 74.1%
256 tickets, 93.5%
The "Else" Category:
There are 191 of us going after the 70 spots in the category of having started a Hardrock, but having less than 5 finishes. With 2015 Hardrock top finishers Kilian Jornet and Anna Frost taking two of those spots automatically, that leaves only 68 for the remaining 189 applicants. Last year's wait list went 12 deep in this category (16 deep two years ago), so I will say that if you are a top 12 wait lister, then you will get in.
189 applicants, 708 tickets, average of 3.7 tickets per applicant
1 ticket, 13.6%
2 tickets, 25.4%
3 tickets, 35.6%
4 tickets, 44.4%
5 tickets, 52.1%
6 tickets, 58.7%
7 tickets, 64.4%
8 tickets, 69.3%
9 tickets, 73.5%
10 tickets, 77.2%
11 tickets, 80.4%
The "Veteran" Category:
Since Hardrock moved to this three-category lottery system, every Hardrock "Veteran" (5 or more Hardrock finishes) who has applied, has been offered a spot. With only 43 applicants for the 35 available spots, the same should be true this year as well. Last year, the wait list of 9 cleared, and this year the wait list will only be 8 long.
There could be some minor adjustments to the ticket counts over the final days, but not enough to significantly change these probability estimates.
Lottery on Sunday, December 7 at 10am MST. Good luck!
