My Gold is still running, but I dunno exactly how long it's been.
I know I've gone through it 3 times already, so 22*3+15=86 hours for me. I got it from someone else a while ago who has beaten it a couple times well, so I can't do much better than that as an estimate.
And even if it dies, I can just swap out the save battery and Gameshark all my Pokemon back in. I'd have to start my adventure over, but after I beat it again, I'll probably just restart anyway.