The Bank of America Chicago Marathon will reopen its registration March 5 as a lottery to fill the last 15,000 spots, marathon officials announced Thursday.
Runners can enter the lottery at chicagomarathon.com starting at 12:01 a.m., March 5, until 9 p.m., March 7. From those entries, 15,000 names will be randomly selected to fill the remaining spots in the Oct. 13 race, officials said.
Runners will be notified on March 12 if they have been selected and they will have until 9 p.m. on March 14 to complete their official registration.
The race will be capped at 45,000 participants.
Marathon registration was open for a few hours Feb. 19 before officials shut it down because of Web problems. Some runners reported lengthy waits on the registration site Active.com while others said the site charged them twice.
About 30,000 runners were able to register, officials said. Marathon officials said refunds have been issued to runners who were charged twice.
The race sold out in six days last year, a record. Registration has typically been first come, first served. The cost to register is $175 for U.S. participants.