Diddy Did It

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.

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.