Do you want to run the 2011 New York City Marathon but don’t want to rely on your application getting chosen in the lottery in order to get into the race? There are 8 ways to secure guaranteed entry.

Applying for a guaranteed entry will still put you into the New York City Marathon lottery process, but you will know ahead of time that your application is definitely going to be chosen.

The first way to bypass the lottery is to run a fast enough marathon or half-marathon to meet the qualification standards of the race. Unlike the Boston Marathon, you need to run the listed time or faster in order to qualify for guaranteed entry and the age group standard you need to meet is your age on the day of your qualifying race, not on the day of the New York City Marathon. Your race has to have been run between January 1, 2010 and January 31, 2011 and the results must be verifiable online.

The second way to bypass the lottery is to raise money for one of the charities listed on the home page for the marathon. Once you commit to raising a certain amount of money, you will be held to that; if you don’t raise enough money then the balance will be charged to your credit card.

The third way to bypass the lottery, if you live outside of the United States, is to sign on with one of their satta International Travel Partners, which will provide transportation, lodging and a bib number.

There are also 5 special groups that can guarantee their entry into the marathon.

The first group are people who got into the 2010 New York City Marathon but canceled before the race. If you fall in this group, you will need to pay for the race again, but you can be guaranteed that you’ll get to run.

The second group are people who have failed to be chosen in the lottery for the past 3 years and did not find an alternative way into the race.

The third group are people that have run the New York City Marathon at least 15 times and want to run the race again.

The fourth group are people that have belonged to the New York City Road Runners since January 31, 2010 and that have run at least 9 New York Road Runners qualifying races last year and have volunteered at at least one of their races.

Alternatively, the fifth group that can bypass the lottery are those that didn’t volunteer (and have been active members long enough and run 9 races) but have donated at least $1000 to the NYRR youth, community and volunteer programs in 2010.