I'm surprised no one saw this or talked about it.
Justin Gimelstob (former US pro tennis player, he won 2 Grand Slams in mixed doubles with Venus Williams) will get $10,000 from Andy Roddick for his charity if he runs the NYC Marathon in under 4:45. If he doesn't do it, he pays Roddick's charity $10,000.
The NYTimes had a huge feature on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/sports/tennis/01gimelstob.html
Gimesltob is 6' 5" and used to be frequently injured. The bet was finalized last week and Gimelstob has now run 11 miles. When the bet was first brought up in March he had only run 3 miles.
Without thinking about it too much I think the guy should be able to do it assuming he makes it to the starting line. He's a fit guy who used to be a professional athlete. Hundreds of thousands of people run under 4:45 every year. Negatives I see are he doesn't have a ton of time left. But he's already done an 11 miler.
So instead of just discussing his chances what training advice would you give him? I think that's where we could help him the most. With a little advice on how to go about the training I think we'll really help his chances. It might be good to know how fast he's running his 11 miles now. He's got to average 10:52 for the marathon. If he's well under this now for 11, then he just needs to increase his long runs a bit and I think he'll have it. Post away.
(I thought for 3 days he got $100,000 for doing this instead of $10,000. Thankfully Andy Roddick also put in a time standard. Virtually anyone can finish a marathon if they go slow enough).