Paul Ryan's marathon

Time Keeper wrote:

I'm not saying Romney has lost my vote, but I'm really concerned he picked the wrong running mate. Why is this so hard for today's Republican party?

In their quest to win elections, they've sold their souls and hitched their wagons to the wackos. The GOP is gonna lose again and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Rojo--

LetsRun (properly) emphasizes integrity in running--particularly on the issue of drug cheats.

You know that no real runner with any integrity would say he broke 3 when he did not.

So the only defense is that he must have meant to say sub-4 but mistakenly said sub-3. The problem with this, as Nick Thompson has pointed out, is that Ryan also volunteered that he was "fast" when he was young (referring back to the sub-4). No one would ever think that sub-4 was fast, whether or not he was a real runner. Even if this was his only race as a runner, he would have known he finished well back in the past. Bottom line: sub-4 and "I was fast" don't make sense together; he clearly meant sub-3 and he clearly lied.

You can still vote for Romney/Ryan and lying about your marathon time is not that big a sin in the real world. But, in the world of running geeks--which is the world of LetsRun--it is a a cardinal sin. So, as a LetsRun founder, you should condemn Ryan. As a voter and a person, you can back Romney/Ryan, but as a runner, you have to call him out.

An official press conference in Davison, MI has been scheduled for noon tomorrow. It is widely speculated that Kip Litton will announce his formal endorsement of the Romney/Ryan ticket.

It certainly is an explanation that plausibly makes sense and that isn't totally unbelievable like me not knowing "what the meaning of the word 'is' is.".

He said he just broke three - when in fact he just broke 4. That very well could be a mistake from 20+ years ago for a non-runner.

Do I think Obama really thinks there are 57 states? No I don't. These guys give hundreds/thousands of interviews to all sorts of people. So yes some guy might be impressed by a 3:59 marathon.

If you are inclined to think, he's a liar, then you are going to think he's lying. If you are inclined to like him, you are going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I just think it's dishonest for people to not point out the actual course time was very likely to be high 3:50s.

Thus I think my previous post was quite good and present it you below in case you missed it:

As Nick Thompson pointed out in that New Yorker piece:

What’s striking about the exchange is how he responds to Hewitt’s “Holy smokes.” A four-hour marathon, for a twenty-year-old, is not something that elicits a “holy smokes.” It’s entirely average; in fact, for the race that Ryan ran, it was below average. In the marathon in question, he finished in nineteen hundred and ninetieth place, out of just thirty-two hundred and seventy-seven male runners. (A 2:55 would have had him at a hundred and thirtieth.) But Hewitt’s reaction didn’t set off any alarm. Instead, Ryan could tell that he had just impressed his host, and he reinforced it, saying “I was fast when I was younger, yeah.”

But according to the interview he is still a runner (albeit not a competitive one):

Anyone who has competed in track at high school and still regularly runs ten miles can tell the difference between a three hour marathon and a four hour marathon.

Rojo--

1. Do you really think he could have thought he was fast when he finished in 1990th place?

2. If you think it is "dishonest" not to say that his actual time was in the 350s, would you agree that it was "dishonest" for Paul Ryan to say what he said?

When I tell people this story, I do not say the actual time was in the 350s, so, in your view, I am dishonest. It would be remarkable if you thought that Paul Ryan did not deserve the same description.

3. Finally, there are two reasons to believe that Paul Ryan knew what he was talking about when he said "sub-3": he is reportedly a fitness fanatic who no doubt cares about these issues and his brother is a runner who knows the difference between sub-3 and sub-4.

Have you no sense of decency, Rojo, at long last?

rojo wrote:

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.

Never underestimate the capacity of a Republican for willful self-delusion.

I'm not buying it that Ryan's "actual" time was in the 3:50s. Given what we know about the guy he assuredly lined up right behind the elites and got across the start line in no less than :03. So give him 4:01.22. And based on the untruths he tells with regularity it absolutely follows that he would lie about his marathon time.

If he didn't remember his marathon time, why didn't he just say that?

Rojo, you're way off on this one. He lied in the most obvious way and you know it. This is a running site--you're protecting someone who braggingly made the cardinal runner's lie.

Rojo,Well, fair enough. I appreciate that you did some actual research on how long it would have taken him to cross the starting line.Politically, I hate everything that Ryan stands for and I think he's a lying snake. I do think he was being dishonest about his PR.But I do appreciate that his campaign, when called out, were honest and said what the marathon was, and that he came out and said he was wrong. I don't believe that he remembered wrong, but he least he owned up to it and acknowledged it.And yeah, maybe his "chip time" (even though chips weren't even invented) MAY have been under 4 hours, he's still not fast, like he claimed.Comparing this to Obama's 57 states slip is not fair. We KNOW people lie about running PRs all the time. That's become half of the fun of this message board since the Olympics have ended. Considering how he said he was fast, it just seems much more likely that he knew he was lying.And I'd like to go for a 10-mile run with him.

Rojo,

You are someone who worked hard to run a sub-2:20. I am wondering how you would have felt if he had said he ran a sub-2:20.

rojo 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.

I thought Rojo was a tiny bit more knowledgable about distance running.

Let me explain: in 1990, chip time was unknown. When you ran a race, you got the GUN time assigned, that's what showed up in the results and no one in 1990 would have dared to claim having run a 2:59 when in fact they ran 3:00.

You don't have to run a race when you make up your own time afterwards.

I *think* chip timing and the concept that your personal time starts when you cross the starting line and NOT when you hear the gun, started around 1995.

This. He isn't someone who ran it on a lark in high school and hasn't thought about running or fitness since.

And rojo, Clinton't what 'is' is was a deliberate dodge away from an aggressive prosecutor. It was pitiful, in a way, but it wasn't a lie. And even if we grant you that point, is your argument really that, because he's not quite as bad as some Democrat you can name he deserves our forgiveness? Our vote? I guess your identity as a Republican trumps your sense of integrity as a runner.

I think you are reaching here. I do not think this changes who anyone will vote for but, come on, the guy clearly said he was fast when he was young. 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.Ryan knew he implied he could run a relatively fast marathon. Anyone who regularly runs 10 miles knows the difference between 2:50 and 4:01. I know lots of average runner who ran one marathon in their life, they would never say they went sub 3.Also, in the pre-chip days, I started mid pack in races of that size and I lost maybe a minute. And I always went by my clock time not my stopwatch time. He BS'd that crowd and stepped in it. Its OK to mock him for it -Republican or Democrat.

Angela Merkel on Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg: "I didn't appoint a scientific assistant or someone with a doctoral dissertation. This is about the job of defence minister."

Mitt Romney on Paul Ryan: "I didn't appoint a long distance runner or someone with a marathon finisher certificate. This is about the job of vice president."