Outside Edge (25/04/10)

If you're aching from all that training for today's London Marathon, don't whinge about it. You've got nothing on Hugh Williams-Preece of Mayfield in East Sussex, who has run 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days. The 40-year-old left Lisbon in Portugal on 3 March and arrived in London on Wednesday after running 1,310 miles and raising some £30,000 for the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity. "It's been tough," he said. "I've been bitten by a dog, chased by a lady with a rake after trying to relieve myself in her garden and twice set off in the wrong direction." But don't expect to run into him today; he's having a rest after suffering his first blister in the last marathon. And the lawn needs a cut.

£740,000

Or two million Brazilian reals, the amount that Brazilian striker Adriano is alleged to have offered his girlfriend, Joana Machado, to stop her posing nude for 'Playboy' – reportedly doubling the magazine's bid. Home strip only.

Cocktail of drugs of the week

Drugs Cheats are the bane of sporting endeavour, but just occasionally they can make us smile too. Take LaShawn Merritt, the US world and Olympic 400 metres champion, who has failed three drugs tests because of an over-the-counter product called ExtenZe, which was supposed to enhance the size of his manhood but also contained the banned steroid DHEA. He is likely to be penalised with a two-year ban, but the 23-year-old was man enough to admit his shame: "To know I've tested positive as a result of a product that I used for personal reasons is extremely difficult to wrap my hands around." So the treatment was successful, then. When he returns, he will run the 800m.

Good week for

Brian Davis, British golfer widely praised for calling a two-stroke penalty against himself for hitting a reed on his backswing to lose a play-off at the Verizon Heritage tournament in the US... Eleanor Gamble, five-year-old golfer hit a hole in one at Cambridge Lakes... and The Duckworth-Lewis Method, Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh's cricket-themed pop album, is nominated for an Ivor Novello award.

Bad week for

Charles N'Zogbia, Wigan striker was arrested at his driving test amid claims that someone else sat the written exam for him... Melbourne Storm, rugby league side stripped of two NRL titles for breaching salary cap rules... and Jamie Mackenzie and Ben Wylson, cousins who cycled on all seven continents without catching a plane, missed the film premiere of their feat in California when all flights were cancelled due to volcanic ash.

High tea of the week

Oh dear! High dudgeon in the Himalayas, where two ladies are vying to become the first woman to reach the summits of all 14 of the world's mountains over 8,000m. Edurne Pasaban of Spain is travelling to Shisha Pangma, her final challenge, and hopes to have scaled it within two weeks, while South Korea's Oh Eun Sun was due to reach the top of Annapurna today to complete the feat, having begun in 1997. But Pasaban, who started in 2001 and has lost two toes to frostbite, is casting doubts about Oh's conquest of Mount Kangchenjunga, because the photo taken at the top looks wrong. To think they shared a cup of tea a few weeks ago on Annapurna. Not so cosy now as they feel the strain.

a.tong@independent.co.uk