Bad luck or ignorance?

4 days before the race, 2 days before departing I received an email from Seoul Marathon organizer, that my payment was failed and my registration was deleted.

If I would still like to participate, I need to reply them an email with personal details and make payment in cash in their office in Seoul on this Fri or Sat.

I was first shocked when reading the first paragraph, then relieved after reading the second, then depressed and frightened when I read the third paragraph which says,
1) my t-shirt size will be random
2) my start group will be random

I'm ok with t-shirt size, but gosh, I'm not ok with random start group, out of 20000 marathoners.
This really freak me out, feeling cold and down.

I have experienced what is it to start from the back.
I was relieved when Seoul Marathon organizer ask for race results for grouping purpose.
I immediately sent the results and got their reply that things were successful.

I had all kind of experience to start from back/middle: late to race when grouping is given, not grouping given for the race and start from middle pack, grouping given but unable find entrace...
but not this version: being "random" in a race with grouping.

I tried to persuade them whatever I can in the email, hopefully they entertain my request to be still start in a designated group according to personal best time.

For the registration, I received two successful confirmation from them. 1st right after registration, saying my registration is complete and successful, and I able to retrieve my data from their database. 2nd was after I submit the race results 2 days after the registration. However, I didn't pay attention to that whether the payment already cleared after my registration. Checking back now, there's no record of transaction in my account. Explanation from the back was that the transaction may be accepted, but it should be cleared within 7 days.

Another lesson learnt - check if the transaction is cleared if you're participating in an important event.

It's always good to say we learn from something. But how many times I should go over this again? Is not that like in movie Edge of Tomorrow that the attempt can be done by clocking back the time.

The trip must go on.
I'll just hope for the best now.