Diddy Did It

P.Diddy did it

Marathoner P. Diddy; Photo - AP P. Diddy managed to make good on his desire to complete the ING NYC Marathon in under 4 hours yesterday. An impressive job, considering that he has only been training for eight weeks (people train for months, if not a year) and the Times reports that his legs seized at mile 12 and that his sports physician says "he's hurting right now" (but he made his post-marathon press conference, of course). Also in the Times coverage of Diddy's running of the city: "[S]everal runners also had signs on their T-shirts � 'Where is P-Diddy?' and 'I want to beat P-Diddy.'" Diddy tells the Post today that the fundraising was not a publicity stunt and that he won't be back next year.

Diddy spoke to the Post's Jeffrey Slonim in yesterday's Diddy Diary that ex Jennifer Lopez donated $26,000 ($1,000 for each mile) and then Ben Affleck doubled that to donate $52,000 [interesting to celeb watchers and sad gossip hounds, such as us: Diddy referred to Ben(nifer) as "hubby" while on the phone to (Ben)nifer and (Ben)nifer as "wifey" while talking to Ben(nifer); so what's the dilly, yo?]. Additonally, Mayor Bloomberg gave a personal donation of $10,000, telling the Diddy, "I respect what you're doing, and I don't normally do this, but I'm going to give you $10,000 out of my pocket," confirming Gothamist's theory that billionaires carry thousands of dollars in their pockets. Diddy managed to raise $2 million - $1 million more than his pledg, which will go to NYC public schools - and of course donations will still be accepted. In our book, if it takes Diddy to run his ass ragged for 26.2 miles and work up a bigger sweat than the one during his gun possession trial to encourage charitable giving or even to consider taking up running, then there's no arguing about his intentions. Next, we'd like him to help out the cause of public television.

Diddy runs with NYPD runners; Photo - AP Jason Kottke tracked Diddy's progress against that of blogger Maciej Ceglowski's marathon run; kottke also notes the various NBC media updates on Diddy's progress and the huge diamond earring Diddy wore while running. Hey, if you're going to drag your pace by a couple seconds each mile, it might as well as be a hunk of ice doing so.

Roger Friedman reports about the pre-marathon Diddy dinner, with copious notes about Diddy's manservant, Farnsworth Bentley.

Gothamist's P. Diddy and the Marathon coverage.

And congratulations to winners Martin Lel (men's) and Margaret Okayo (women's), both of Kenya, as well as all the other participants. Complete coverage from the Times.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung on November 3, 2003 8:21 AM

Comments [rss]

callum

hello this is a Question to Matt Welsh and Ian Thorpe and here it is.

How many gold medals have you both won for urselves

Can you please tell me thanks

callum martin

callum

hello this is a Question to Matt Welsh and Ian Thorpe and here it is.

How many gold medals have you both won for urselves

Can you please tell me thanks

callum martin

asdfasd

haha u stink, but charity is coo, but u stink, haha haha :P

FatLadyInHarness

no offesne it WAS great and everything but the PR he got from it will be worth way more than the 2 mill he raised for the kids! Very savy guy!

don

Sean Combs ran a marathon and raised money for NY schools. He put a lot of effort and time into this selfless act. Why are so many people talking crap about this selfless accomplishment of his. When was the last time any of us busted our asses, raised money, and lobbied to do something for perfect strangers or our community?

fredrik

Sean Combs net time was 4:14:52. He started in the front and it only took him 2 seconds to cross the start line. All results avaiable at http://www.ingnycmarathon.org/results/results.html I also know a couple of person that crossed the start line together with Sean Combs, which gives further support for the offical results.

lukas

bloomberg doesn't "usually do" what, exactly? donate to charities? support kids? or fraternize with self-aggrandizing rap impresarios?

Jen

That is amazing and thanks for the link to the British Heart Organization. I'll mention it tomorrow.

Stu

So Mr Diddy ran a marathon for charity. Big deal. Ranulph Fiennes (59) ran seven marathons in seven days (finishing with the NY marathon), for charity, only four months after suffering a heart attack and undergoing double bypass surgery(!). Surely that's a more newsworthy achievement.

Jen

Sadly, we did not catch Mr. Diddy running. We were in Brooklyn, attempting to have brunch at 11:30AM but only succeeding at 1:30PM. Jake's dad did see some runners on Fourth Avenue and then we helped a bunch of friends of a runner take a picture of their clever "Go Amy" shirts. Then I almost passed out from a fever, but luckily Jake's sister carries a huge bottle of Ibuprofen around.

hatchback

I was hoping to wake up to a Post or Daily News hed reading P. DIDDIT! (Conversely, if he failed to finish: P. DIDN'T!) Gothamist comes close with P. Diddy Did It. Did any Gothamists see Mr. Combs running for or with the kids?

doshin

No apology necessary. For what it's worth, I didn't detect even a hint of crankiness in your reply.

But enough of this good will, I have work to avoid!

Jen

I'm sorry, doshin, I was being cranky because I was working on today's post for a while and then I saw your comment.

doshin

Good article.

My apologies for jumping the gun.

Jen

Actually, his net time was 3:58:22; the 4:14:54 includes the time it actually took for him, running in the middle of the pack, to cross the start line. (The top athletes are at the front...it takes anywhere from 20 minutes to even ur to even make it to the start line when you have about 35,000 runners competing.)