I don't think he is going to fail. A marathon is an achievable goal if you have a training program and apply it. If the NYTimes is smart, they'll get the a good coach to help him. It's a lot harder to fail if you have a good coach.
The key to good public failure motivation is to make it opt-in. Blog post committing yourself to run a marathon: good. But:
Past students of mine have repeatedly told me to be a bit of a bastard in the classroom, as they find the persistent threat of embarrassment (if they are unprepared) to be a useful motivator.
That's a recipe for disaster. People's learning styles vary greatly, and helpful motivation to one student might be traumatic humiliation to another. Since students are a captive audience, the people who hate that style will just stop coming to class.
People will embarrass themselves enough as it is; no need to do it for them.
I think the point was that the motivation was of avoiding the "traumatic humiliation." Obviously, though, you have to figure out "who can take it" to set a few examples for the rest, perhaps even briefing those people in advance.
