A few friends and I want to bet our friend that he can't run a marathon. He is about 6'0 130 pounds and a celiac. He never exercises and isn't physically active. Was wondering with 3 months of training what would be good odds to give him and what time would he have to complete it in?

a million to 1. But seriously, it is going to be ridiculously hard for him to do it in that time frame. See if he will take 10/1 or something.

Had to google celiac.

Eh, I think this is totally possible. If he is serious and trains hardcore, 3 months is doable. I took 4 months when running my first one, and honestly didnt need that much time, but I was physically active. Your friend certainly has the body type to make it. I'd say you need to set 5 hours as the absolute maximum.

i'm assuming this is a full marathon and not a half?

If he has to run the whole way, zero chance to do it in 3 months. Give him 1000 to 1.
If he can walk a portion of it that changes things. Also make sure he is not allowed to pull a Rosie Ruiz (she took a taxi).

Walking should be allowed. Just factor that into the time. Even some experienced marathoners walk through water stations.

Depends on the time limit. The time limit for the big city marathons is
often above 6 hours, so this should be feasible for him.

Assuming this is who I think it is, I would want to bet against, but I feel like my betting on it would make him actally end up succeeding lol

Full marathon on an outdoor track

no idea who this person is, but if they are not physically active (and have no history of being physically active), I dont think its possible at all given 3 months training time. Half marathon is do-able for sure. Out of shape people train for half marathons all of the time within a 3-6 month range. And from what I gathered, it beats up your body pretty good. So given that, and its a full marathon, snow balls chance in hell.

EDIT: if he does it, side bets for a heart attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#Cardiac_health

Not possible. You could give him 7 hrs and he would still fail.

"You don't train for a marathon. You just run it. Here's how you run a marathon: Step 1: You start running. There is no step 2."

**** the haters he can do it

Time from the gun or time from the shoe chip? This could be as much as 10 minutes. There's no way we can judge his chances. We would need to run with him to know. Would seem tough to break 6 hours with only 3 months of training. But if he followed good strategy of mostly walking very fast, 6 hours is doable.

This will not end well.

For him, I mean.

Really hard to say what the proper line is on this prop bet. 3 months can actually be a long time for running. It's not as comparable to something like a weight lifting prop bet (2 miles to 26 in 3 months would be the same as benching 100 to 1300 in 3 months if you took the ratio at face value). The couch to 5K training program is 3 months I believe, and my brother did this from having not ever ran more than a minute in his life to running for an hour in 3 months, so the potential for + output in running is definitely more available than other forms of training. My guess is that motivation is not the biggest factor in determining the line here, because the question is more "is this possible with even the strictest of training regimens? How possible?" Once you determine that, which will provide a fairly high odds IMO, factoring motivation into it isn't that great of a weight. I don't think I'd take this for >10:1, but I think it might be +EV to do so.

Like I said above, training in 3 months is def possible. However, you need to be in semi-decent shape beforehand.

Idk what the shoe chip thing means but if this became a big enough bet it would be livestreamed otherwise me anda buddy are just gonna watch. He played a lot of sports when younger but nothing in the past like 6 years. He looks like he would be in shape but that's mainly due to celiacness. It's definitely the physcial aspect I was wondering about since he can be a very motivated kid.

Who else under that description might it be?

His celiac could play a big role. 130 very likely means it's not in very good control. Diarrhea, abdominal pain and malabsorption would **** up any training program and could make it nearly impossible to finish. Huge dog imo.

For about the last 20 years all major races have participants run with a computer shoe chip. This way they know when you cross the start line and finish line. There are also random checkpoints along the race which you must cross. If your shoe didn't cross every checkpoint, you are disqualified(for possible cheating).

If he were capable of walking 4 miles per hour, that would be 6 hours and 35 minutes.

im the friend/idiot who is thinking about doing this. im not entirely confident clearly as im in very sub par shape right now, but id be willing to make the bet if i felt it were worth it for me to actually try. we can work out rules, escrows, etc if anyone is interested. Im sure i could have reputable people come vouch for my trustworthiness and who will confirm im not already in great shape capable of running marathons and trying to scam lol.

i think by the time you figure all of that stuff out, it'll be too late. if you're serious about getting in running shape and want a prop bet to help motivate you, why don't you make one for a marathon a year away from now and have to finish in under a certain amount of time? the odds would be a little less one sided on something like that imo, and more time to determine line/escrow/trust/etc

i think that takes away from the bet my friends made up though. its not about motivating myself, i just like the challenge. the short amount of time is what the bet was all about when my friends brought it up.