I bet someone $1000 that I could get a World Athletics profile by the end of 2024. What are my odds of success?

Best of luck with the training, OP. Hopefully you prove my skepticism wrong and hit your goal. Remember to be cautious in your mileage buildup. Going from 30 mpw to 80-90 mpw in less than 2 years is absolutely a recipe for injury if everything doesn't go perfectly. Your body needs time to adapt, and if you just keep stacking more and more volume on, things can turn south fast. When you see guys clicking off big weekly mileage, many of them have been building up through years of training, adding more on each year over a period of 5-10 years. Have there been folks who have pulled it over in a shorter time frame? For sure, but the injury risk is quite high.

5000m Indoor Racewalk

worldathletics.org

5000 Metres Race Walk - men - senior - indoor - 2023

Open link

Looking at previous seasons....it is going to take sub 23:00 (7:24 pace) to get on the WA List.

Alan

To have a remote chance you should join a track club, hire a coach, and as you suggest in your original post, structure your lifestyle to “train like a pro.” All of that - coach, equipment, travel, event fees, food & lodging, not to mention opportunity costs - will total much more than $1000. If you want to use the bet as a motivation, fine. But the cheaper option is just give him the money and use that as an object lesson to not make stupid bets in the future.

There's actually a typo on the WA website right now.

"Senior Outdoor 2022
1500 Metres Male

Limit: 4:40.00"

My sub 4:40 time from last year just fits right in. I actually checked my exact time on the 0.000000001% chance that I already had a WA profile, but it didn't pan out.

Original link:

worldathletics.org

1500 Metres - male - senior - outdoor - 2022

Open link

Wayback machine link, since the typo will probably be fixed sooner or later:

web.archive.org

1500 Metres - male - senior - outdoor - 2022

Open link

You probably could pull off a Rosie Ruiz at some marathon BUT you need to be extremely savvy about this. You need to actually run a good part of the race. Do your homework. I see a 2:20ish Rosie Ruiz potential in you. Not sure what penalties exist if you are caught. Do your homework.

Also indoor 2000m

Looks like sub 5:30? 4:25 mile pace....

Alan

The lack of opportunities make this a bad idea. When was the last time you saw a 5000m racewalk being held at an indoor American track meet?

I have an IAAF profile and I was slow as f. They have me listed with a 4:15 mile (which actually isn’t my best because I ran 4:09 my junior year in high school) and 14:44 5000. I have it because my freshman year in college I ran a really a good steeple and was highly ranked on the U20 list so here I am. Forever having the slowest PRs of any IAAF profile.

Your best bet might be to say you’re 45 and get on the senior list for whatever your best event is.

You don't need to be on rankings, to get a profile. I checked my profile.

My first result is from 2011 - 9.12 3000m at nationals. Some other weak results I see from 2012.

10.07 3000m steeple, 1.26 600m indoor, 4.35 indoor mile, 2.38 1000m indoor

Go under 14 for the indoor 3000m race walk. If you can't get good enough, bribe the race officials to not DQ you for breaking the walking form rules.

I think their senior list is pretty much just everyone 21 and older. Heck, even Ed Whitlock doesn't have a WA profile, so claiming to be 45 won't help things.

He'll have to travel to Europe. Apparently RW is a thing there.

He could enter a 5000m indoor race here and just tell the organizers he is racewalking and see if they let that fly.

Alan

That's excellent news, but how do you get a profile then? Do you just email them or something?

I double-checked the site again and couldn't find my profile on it. When I ran that sub 4:40 last year, the overall winner ran a 3:45. His time from that race was included in his WA profile, so WA definitely used those race results but didn't include me or some of the slower runners.

I don't need to be on rankings in order to win the bet, and I don't particularly care too much about being ranked anyway.

That would put him in the top five in his age group at the Houston half marathon, which is one of the deepest races in the country. Some of you guys are completely of your rockers.

Strava is full of guys just putting in lots of milage consistently, who are way too slow to win this bet.

If it's just to get a World Athletics profile this doesn't require you to hit any world rankings (for example I looked at Singapore profiles and there's a load with none except PBs). Or looking at a GB running Youtuber Cole Gibbens with a 15:18 5K but no world ranking so it seems to be based on running in certain events probably the ones in this list:

worldathletics.org

Events Calendar | World Athletics

World Athletics Events and Results

Open link

.

In the Watford Open Graded meet 800m on 15/06/2022 the cut-off is roughly at Race 12 of 15 with a large number of people with times >2 minutes having a World Athletics page.

So look up your location and find an Open Meet and you might be able to get in with only a regional competitor time.

Agree with the 1:11 being completely unattainable.

But how many of those Strava guys are doing tempo runs, VO2 max workouts, plyometrics, race pace sessions, and so on? It seems like a huge majority of the guys in my area are just doing unorganized junk miles. To make matters worse, I know of a few cases where the distances on Strava were actually biked and not run.

The plane ticket, hotels, entrance fee, etc. are almost certainly going to cost him more than $1000. Not worth it.

EPO