Paul Ryan's marathon

Link wrote:

I'm in! I'm not sure how we disprove it, though. We'd need dates and climbs. We'd also need to know who he was with and we'd have to get them to admit that he didn't make the climb he claims he did. OR prove that none of them were there because they were on record as being elsewhere. Seems like a tough get... But, I'm in the mood to avoid grading right now. Gentleman (and ladies..) start your googling!

If you need inspiration, how crowd sourcing can convict cheaters, have a look at this:

ThebestVPever wrote:

It was not a slip up like 57 states. It was more like Hilary Clinton talking about sniper fire when she landed somewhere as first lady.

this seems like a great comparison to me. they both may have even internalized the lie so much that they didn't even realize they weren't telling the truth.

in either case, they were saying something that was untrue about their personal history in order to win supporters. perhaps it is simply a sign of the massive ego required to think oneself qualified to run for president (or vice president).

Saying 2 instead of 3 hours, maybe. A little suspicious of the Fast indulgence, and the mention of running 10 miles currently. Casually running 10 miles is no ordinary thing, not impossible by any means, but not impossible, especially with such a bad back. Does he mean he occasionally does a 10k charity run by which he means 5k?

Also, "I lettered in varsity, you know, my first year in high school, mostly soccer and track." Wondering if this is true, too. Maybe just a small school.

20 years ago in a college bar

Paul Ryan: Yep I'm an 8 incher

Later that night in his dorm room

Paul Ryan: Whoops, guess I was off by 3"

Like many others here, I don't buy the rationale

for this purported mistake. I feel certain Ryan's misstatement was deliberate and I am left to wonder why he would do this. I ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 1979 and finished in 3:04. No chips then, of course, and I lost some minutes getting to the starting line, and probably several more jogging the first couple miles until it thinned out. Had I been on the front row, I suppose I would have broken three hours, but it was 33 years ago, and if anyone asked, it would not occur to me to say I ran any time other than 3:04. My lifetime PR is 2:44:11. It has never even occurred to me to say I was fast, given other men have run this distance in under 2:05. While I admit that my running stats might be more important to me than Ryan's are to him, I can't believe this was an accidental misstatement.

I am not a psychologist, but I continue to think this is symptomatic of some curious personality trait in many politicians of all political leanings. To me, it suggests some deep form of insecurity: it's not enough to have the best ideas on how to govern the nation: they feel some need to be all things to everyone. It's a troubling personality characteristic, and again, I think it's manifest in other ways in Democrats as well. a friend of mine suggests it's something like politicians who phony-up military records.

There is a reason, why such superhero feats are spouted:

Paul Ryan is typical of conservative white males,they are

all unathletic pathological liars.

hoosomething wrote:

Casually running 10 miles is no ordinary thing, not impossible by any means, but not impossible, especially with such a bad back.

You're on to something here.

1. Being able to run 10 miles puts him easily in the 1 percent of fittest men his age. The problem: I don't believe that stat either. Maybe a 10k.

2. So he can't run over 10 miles anymore because of that disc but P90X is no problem? P90X makes you do many fast reps of pullups, sacrificing form for numbers. I am sorry but that is not good for your back.

ps I of course meant, "but not ordinary" instead of the two "impossible"s.

Seriously, how many of us Letsrunners ran 10+ miles today? 1/4th? How many have us done it when you didn't consider yourself a runner and were super busy with other endeavors?

Wikiwatcher wrote:

The 1990 Grandma's marathon had more than 2000 finishers as Ryan finished 1990th in the race. So he very likely did run the 26.2 miles in the high 3s - not high 2s.

There is a very believable explanation for this mixup. He just got confused with 4 and 3 hours. It's not like he ran 3:30 - he ran just under 4 hrs and he said he ran just under 3 hrs.

But this was in the age before anybody thought of "chip time".

So he finished the race knowing he didn't achieve a sub-4:00-h-time (which would be a reasonable aim for a sports guy who doesn't specialize in distance running). How can he confuse that with breaking the three hour barrier?

Lots of people started their watch when they crossed the line. It's basically the same as a chip time except no one else knows about it but you. I ran Grandma's in the early 1990's and unless Ryan was way further up at the start than he should have been, he really did break 4 hours. I'm not defending the breaking 3 hours thing. I'm just saying that it's defensible that he broke 4 hours.

LA Times website front page: Paul Ryan exaggerates his marathon-running prowess

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-paul-ryan-exaggerates-his-marathonrunning-prowess-20120901,0,2323155.story

lpd wrote: Paul Ryan is typical of conservative white males,they are all unathletic pathological liars.

Really now? And then there's John Kerry (D-MA) who wove this tall tale while running for President in 2004 -

"Q: You've run a marathon?"

"A: I did. I ran a marathon back in '80, something like that. Did the Boston Marathon."

According to the BAA there is no evidence Kerry ran Boston in any year. Perhaps Lerch keeps his imaginary finisher's medal in a trophy case next to his phony military decorations.

See, the first hour and two minutes of the marathon were run under the Bush administration, yes. But the other 2:59 is Obama's fault.

@KagroX

Yes, plausible, but the telling remark is his response to the host's "Holy smokes!" remark (which most reports I've seen don't pick up on). "I was fast when I was younger, yeah." No 4 hour marathoner I know describes himself as "fast."

This was absolutely no lapse of memory or slip of the tongue. It was an exaggeration he thought he'd get away with.

Yeah republican controlled House and senate. Signed by clinton on like his last day in office. So any action taken by that regulation took place during the Bush administration.

right yeah.

Right remember the Republicans controlled house and senate from 1994-2007. Remember!

So Republicans controlled house, senate, president and judicary supreme court from 2001-2007. They had the power to do anything they wanted for 6 years. Why did everything unravel just after those 6 years?

It makes me sad that you can't spell "Lurch".

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

Not quite as bad as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman "or I'm not a crook" or "the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised" but there will be plenty more ammunition before the election comes around.

hoosomething wrote:

ps I of course meant, "but not ordinary" instead of the two "impossible"s.

Of course, just a mere typo.

hoosomething wrote:

Seriously, how many of us Letsrunners ran 10+ miles today? 1/4th?

19.8 miles today.

Double Standard wrote:

RoJo

Paul Ryan licked up the amazed praise from the host and added that he faster when he was younger. He did not mispeak.

You, Rojo, the person who has been fighting for truth in athletics should not try to equate that with the 57 states thing. Lets run does not care bout geography here. I mean 57 states do not exist, the time Ryan said exists and thus more believable without fact checking.

Otherwise you stop the Block, Gatlin, Lance and other passionate fights you participate in.

He is a liar, it does not matter in policy and power. But in athletics and on lets run that matters and do not try to make excuses for him we will respect you more

I'm not saying he did or didn't lie. I'm saying, Obama once said there were 57 states and didn't mean that. I do believe there is a chance he could have misspoke here and think your conclusion will be based on which way you lean.

If the time was 4:35 or 3:35, I would say - 100% he lied. Since his actual race time was almost certainly high 3:50s and he said high 2:50s, he could have misspoke.

The fact of the matter is if you break 4:00 in the marathon, you are still doing pretty well. Last year at New York, according to marathonguide.com, there were 46536 finishers and 15165 broke 4:00. The NY site lists 47340 finishers and someone who ran 4:00:00 was 15336th. Either way, if you break 4:00 hrs, you are in the top third of the field as that's 32.6% or 32.4% percent either way.

0.325876741

If he lied, it raises VERY VERY serious concerns to me as to me lying is a big deal. When it came out that Herman Cain was clearly lying about his affairs, I lost all respect for him immediately.

I know it wasn't a big deal for many Dems when Clinton lied, but to me, I think when we are picking the president and VP, we should only be choosing the very best. No affairs, no lies, etc.

It hasn't been a good first week for Ryan as I knew little about him until this week and I'm very troubled by what I've heard so far in terms of him playing loose with the facts.

But I really think your conclusion as to whether he lied or didn't lie will depend on which way you lean politically.

Do all the dems on here who are irate for Ryan possibly lying about a marathon time know that Biden flat out plagiarized in law school and plagiarized his stump speech for the 1988 presidential race? Biden said he was the first in his family to go to college - no true. He said he came from coal miners- not true. He said he graduated in the top half of his law school class - not true. He said he attended law school on an academic scholarhsip - not true. He said he had three undergraduate degees - not true.

I'm pretty confident if you read that slate article, you'll have to agree it's impossible to get worse than that.

As a result, I won't be making my choice for president based on who is or isn't the best VP. It's hard to get much worse than Joe Biden - he's a proven liar who recently implied said Republicans want to enslave blacks.