A Sporting Chance

“Amane Gobena of Ethiopia won the women’s race and Gebo Burka of Ethiopia won the men’s race in the 29th Asics L.A. Marathon. Gobena, 31, won in 2 hours 27 minutes 37 seconds, collecting $25,000 for the victory. Burka, 26, clocked a 2:10:37 to win a marathon for the first time. He also won $25,000. Gobena won $50,000 for winning the gender ‘challenge.’ The women were given a 17:41 head start and Gobena finished 41 seconds ahead of Burka.”
(link)

I wonder if I could beat Miss Gobena if she allowed me a four-hour head start? Actually I would prefer starting at the same time, but with an 18-mile lead. It would be sporting, in the sense that I’m not sure which of us would win, but not sufficiently interesting an outcome that anyone would put up a purse that would attract either of us to the challenge.

[The six sentence quote above was published by the LA Times as four consecutive paragraphs, but are here consolidated as one paragraph. It seems paragraphs are now what we used to consider sentences, and any periods in the middle of modern paragraphs would have previously been semicolons.]