Chicago Registration Nightmare

The good news is that I am registered.  Late last night I received an email directly from Chicago Marathon (not Active.com) and the 2nd paragraph (after all the apologies) read: "The fact that you received this email is assurance that you are registered for the 2013 Chicago Marathon even if you did not receive a confirmation from Active.com."  Whew!!
I did receive a confirmation from Active and payment confirmation about 2 hours after I registered.  I have a couple of friends who showed as being registered 3 and 4 times AND had been charged 3 and 4 times too.  I checked my credit card acct online several times after I registered and was only charged once.  My sis-in-law also got the email and was only charged once.
However - today I am showing as being registered 3 times and my sis-in-law is showing as being registered 4 times.  Both of us have rechecked our credit card accounts and have only been charged once so we consider ourselves lucky! 
Every time Chicago Marathon posts an update on Facebook they get hundreds of angry comments.  Most people seem to think that Active.com isn't up to handling an event so big.  I've registered through Active.com many times but I'm pretty sure it was all local smaller events. 
I knew that there would be a very large number of people attempting to register right at noon central time so I expected it to be slow and maybe even have to try several times.  I had that happen both times I registered for a Bayshore event which fills the first day.  It's not unheard of.  A long time ago after I registered for a Race for the Cure, I got charged 3 times and that wasn't even a situation like a race where many try to register at once.  It just happened.  I emailed the race director but that error was already in the process of being corrected.  I actually got a call.  In that case, there was an alert of the same credit card being charged multiple times so it is "human checked" to make sure it's actually 3 separate registrations, which, in this case, wasn't.   So, it DOES happen. 
I know Chicago is a popular marathon and it's one that I've always said I'm going to do someday.  I don't know how many more marathons I'm going to run.  I like halves better.  I wasn't planning on doing a marathon this year but my sis-in-law and I had talked about this for after I was done with school and I'm done with school!  I guess I'm glad that this is the year we do it if it's going to become another event that fills the first day and is hard to get into, especially when people want to run it together and there is the chance that both can't get in.   I will be able to say that I've run Chicago and I won't have to deal with this kind of registration again!! 
CHICAGO HERE WE COME!!!!!!!

Runner Nerd
running Chicago as 3 people!!