There are Death Valley marathons, and there are Death Valley marathons. "Badwater" is held in July & requires a good deal more than 3,5, or even 8 liters of water. One person was disqualified a few years ago for having another person run alongside & constantly spray the competitor with water! http://www.badwater.com/training/gear.html The "normal" Death Valley marathons take 3-5 hours & still require 2-4 liters PER HOUR. http://envirosports.com/events/displayevent.php?eventid=2102 http://www.envirosports.com/events/event.php?eventid=2106 I would imagine that the competitors of any of these events have plenty of time to work out the answer, but may not be "compos mentos" enough ("compos mentos" is an old Latin phrase meaning "capable of mixing Mentos with Diet Coke"). :-) At 07:24 AM 8/6/2007, Eric Angelini wrote:
lots of math contest experience and high school teaching (...)
A (very) old one I like :
Two Death Valley marathonians friends complete their run together and seek shadow in their tent nearby the finish line.
The first one had prepared a fresh 5-liter tank of water in a cooling box and his friend a similar 3-liter one.
They were about to start drinking when a journalist enters the tent desperately asking for water.
OK, the water is divided into three equal parts -- and drunk.
The thankful journalist insists to pay his share and leaves 8 dollars to be split between the two friends.
How?
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(...) and high school teaching experience, do this kind of stuff in our heads