Fun stuff. I am amazed on the wet blankets out there that were putting a damper on some good clean honest fun. Geeez-of-peete. It's not like the guy was claiming to be Roger Bannister or anything. In fact, he was kinda humble about the whole thing I thought, and if I'm not mistaken, all he was originally asking about is measuring it so he could legitimize the bet.
Anyway, a couple thougts about this:
1) I wonder if in a couple weeks or whatever when he is recovered completely, if he went and did the same thing in the reverse direction, what the results would be. Granted, it wouldn't be as fun or motivating, so he wouldn't have the same adrenaline rush and probbaly wouldn't have the same support, etc... But I wonder how far under he got would compare to how far over he'd be (from what he would do on the flat). Example: If he is 4:04 shape and he ran 3:46, would he run 4:22 in the other direction? Gut feel is he would be much slower than that. ???
2) I also wonder how much of this is mental. Granted, the downhill/gravity pull will make him run faster of course, but I also wonder if the same thing was set up and he was duped into thinking it was downhill when it actually was flat, if he believed in his mind that he was supposed to run faster than 4min, if that alone would make him run faster than he previously had done. Like it's true of anyone that breaks a barrier, where it seems they have a lot less trouble doing it after that first time. Maybe they are not that much better physically, but just that they believe they are "supposed" to. ???