Why do military guys feel the need to lie about their mile times?

I was in the Army Reserve for 5 years, the exaggeration is fairly common. I think it's most common when they're running on the road and get the distance of their route wrong. Just nod your head and smile

gsimmons2005 wrote:

All that said, wouldn’t think of ever picking a fight with a ranger. A scrawny xc racer on the other hand...

Would I *pick* a fight with anyone? No.

Would I defend myself against someone? Yup.

Would a well-adjusted and combat proficient (i.e. boxer/grappler/etc.) Ranger pick a fight with a stranger— skinny or otherwise? Probably not. *Most* martial arts practitioners are pretty humble. (There are exceptions, I get it.) They don’t walk around needing to prove themselves by claiming borderline impossible running feats (10:00 2-mile with a 60 pound ruck... k..) or posturing for a fight.

Are the type of Billy Badasses (“Ranger” or otherwise) who pick fights with people more than likely overcompensating and less likely to be skilled in physical combat? I’d put money on yes. And these are the type that will eventually get slept by the wrong “scrawny xc racer” if they play this game often enough.

Everyone seems to jock the mystique of speshul forcezz, and while most of them are obviously tougher than the average soldier and citizen, the guys with the biggest false egos end up getting theirs in the long game. There’s always a bigger fish out there. Especially these days.

tl;dr — be humble because everyone can spot a bvllshitter

Has he considered wearing a watch to time himself instead of throwing his phone on the ground?

This guy's vlog is the epitome of what I hate about vlogs. It's supposedly a video about running a sub 6 mile, yet the entire video is sht music and him talking .. and 20 seconds of him running. How does anyone with higher than an 80 iq follow this guy?

He did run on the outside of lane 1 tho,.not lane zero like I normally sneak into on turns lol...

My guest guess is this was a low 8, he appeared to get out of the gate around 7:00, or even 6:30 pace, but the rest of the shots looked closer to 9:00, maybe 8:30 at best.

My guess is this was an 8:00 something 1595 (nearly in lane 2)

Logan Decker wrote:

I was in the Army Reserve for 5 years, the exaggeration is fairly common. I think it's most common when they're running on the road and get the distance of their route wrong. Just nod your head and smile

Often times the blame falls with the drill/fitness instructor who knows damn well the course is short and/or fudge with the time/stopwatch. Again, more dishonesty from the Pentagon.

I went to basic at Ft Sill in 1993. The PFT run was either two or three laps (I really don't recall) on the roads around some of the barracks. I was not a runner at any point prior to that. My first test (about 24 hours after "crossing the tracks") was 18:09 or something like that. Fail.

Again I don't recall whether we took 2 or 3 additional PFT including the final, but I do recall during the final, I was one second from max score, so an 11:55 for my age group and second in the company.

At AIT just a couple of weeks later, this time at Redstone Arsenal, there was this paved road that seemingly went around nothing, and it was two laps. I ran something like 10:30 there. Well over a minute faster than my previous best, and second again in my company.

However, there's no way I was that much fitter. In all likelihood, both of those courses were short, with Redstone being quite a bit shorter. A couple of times we did 3200m on the track, and I got down to lower 11s there after almost a year of training (27H AND 27T).

I never broke 11 after that, and while we ran what seemed like a lot, in reality it was probably no more than 10 miles per week (ok run to the class 6 and back sorts of runs).

Oh, as for the 225 pound guy running sub 6, yea I can buy it. A few years ago before I got even fatter, I ran 4 half marathons with times of 126, 127, 128 and 130 flat (not in that order) at almost 200 pounds and I was running sub 19 5ks.

I'm going to revise my assessment a little. I'm still sure this guy couldn't run 5:58 but I think he probably ran faster than 8:00. Reason is this guy ran a 3:58:33 (9:06 pace) in the Austin Marathon last year. Not sure of his weight at the time but I confirmed the time on marathonguide.com. If he can go 9:06 pace for 26 miles I'm sure he can break 8:00 for one mile. He's probably got higher percentage of Type II fibers and is better at shorter distances.

The guy still seems like an arrogant jerk meathead, though.

I know local tracks that non-runners think is 400m but in reality is 367m (space saving at city hs tracks). It's fun to tell them they're off by 8.25%

A personal trainer at a gym (made you see them to get a free 'assessment' when you join) to sell you PT sessison was some jacked dude and would flat out tell me he runs 10k under 30min. It was the funniest crap I've ever heard. This was after I told him I was a high 35's guy,

I asked him if he was eating all the medals he was probably winning because he was a bit too full of iron.

Then they want to watch you walk in a straight line (only walk) and tell you how to be a better runner.

Lol I walked right out of there.

Okay, they showed the guy running a total of 18 seconds. How is that a 5:58 mile?

He also falls on the infield and talks to us. Very False.

He has a popular nutritional supplement line. It’s all about marketing. And now he’s reached the LRC.

His ability to run sub 6:00 now depends on how fast he ran when he was lighter.

I’m 180+ and 5’6” and not nearly as lean as this guy. From looks I do not look like I could go sub 6.

Most military folks are just misremembering not all out lying. Or it’s just an embellishment.

Alan

Any Austin runners know where that track is? That's apart of his morning routine...A lot of Crossfitters, Body Pump, Zumba etc I know at "warehouse" (not his) claim they're in 6min shape Really that's not asking too much

Fun fact: Nick Willis at one of his MilerMethod clinics paced his wife on a 5:50 mile and it literally looked like he was cooling down between reps

KJH wrote:

I know a guy, 6’2 and about 230lbs who claimed he ran 6 miles in 32 minutes. I saw him about a week later cycling home from work and looked like he was having a hard time maintaining 12mph on his mountain bike on a flat road.

I run low 5 and can't maintain 12 mph on my mountain bike** (unless it's downhill, of course)! If I were shorter and heavier, that could have been me.

**I got my "mountain" bike from a big box retailer with a gift card that was free to me

I had a similar discussion in a military running group not too long ago. I was in the Corps late 70's /early 80's, coming from a XC/wrestling (my main sport back then)/track background. On various FB pages you can see a constant stream of self-reporting max PFT'ers, yet I only ever saw maybe 4 people break 18 with my own eyes - and met a handful more who I believe were capable. The general consensus among the group of actual runners was that units know (or don't care) that their course is short and let it slide in order to give good scores.

So, there are certainly plenty who "mis-remember", and also quite a few who genuinely believe that they did it because that's what they were told.

The wonderful world of LRC: a place where I can read a thread criticizing a man for claiming to run one single 6-minute mile, yet "hobby joggers" can be derided for running 6-minute pace, as if it is a piddling walking pace for any legitimate, "real" runner; Galen Rupp can be chastised for only accomplishing a 2:06 marathon; and at the same time this thread about a 6-minute mile is being written and read, another thread claims that American marathoners should be ashamed about running 2:12 (right around 5-minute pace))

I am surprised so many people doubt that this man could run one mile in 6 minutes. Isn't that just an easy roll-out-of-bed warmup for most of you?

Military liars wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP_BY21eVHI&feature=share

Here’s yet another example. This guy has a really popular YouTube channel but based on his stride he’s flat out lieing about running 5:58.

I’ve seen so many posts about army guys lieing about their physical fitness and I was curious to why it even happens..? Is it an cultural thing to just brag / lie about stuff in the military..?

In college I did run a 4:04 mile real deal. I entered the Navy and went through Basic Under Water Demolition ( BUD/s). The majority of men in the course are more fit pound for pound then any runner I ever raced against. At prep in Great. Lakes Illinois we would do mile repeats 5 usually and it was not uncommon to see military guys running under 5:00 on repeats that were not runners and yes we did them on a 400m track 4 laps 9 yards back from the starting line full 1609m. On one occasion we had a guy who was 230 easily who tried to chase me down and ran just under 5:00 a 4:58 and change I believe. Roughly 90% of a 220 man class ran under 6:00 for a mile and around 30 were sub 5:00 miles and there was in fact big name college runners in my class besides myself. So don't dock all military men not all are full of scrap some are but not all are. I had people think the same about me until they verified my claims themselves.