Spread betting

Now I've set up a sponsorship website, I am obviously seeking sponsors. Starting with immediate family went quite well. Next step was to approach a few friends from university. This is where the trouble started. I casually suggested in the spiel on the JustGiving site that you might like to incentivise me: perhaps an extra fiver if I break four hours. It seems that I under-estimated my target audience.

I find myself now stuck in a discussion of spread betting on my own time, with a series of people. It goes something like this: if I beat 4 hours, then the Red Cross gets an extra pound per minute, say. If, on the other hand, I don't beat 4 hours, then I pay a pound a minute to the Red Cross.

There are 2 big problems with this. One is that I am in danger of entering this arrangement with lots of people, meaning that they individually stand to pay an extra 10 or 15 quid, whereas I, individually, stand to pay an extra 10 or 15 quid times the number of people I sign up to the crazy scheme. The second problem is that there is a limit to how much faster than 4 hours I could possibly run. The world record is about 2 hours; my best possible time without getting a piggy back from Paula Radcliffe probably about 3.45. There is, on the other hand, an almost limitless amount by which I could miss four hours, and a whole range of potential causes for that happening.

New proposal to those who are reading: give me an incentive to beat four hours, and if I don't, then I will make one payment to the Red Cross. Let's say 25 quid. How's that?

Now shut up and sponsor me.