Bernie Sanders says he was 'one of the better milers in NYC'

Better is a bit vague but I would give him credit. Granted we are talking like 60 years ago. Seems weird to bring it up

I heard he was in the top 1% of HS milers

This checks out based on the research in the linked article.

Give him credit - seems like in this case a candidate is actually accurately assessing his running prowess.

I heard he was in the tahp one tenth of one puhcent.

Would Bernie have defeated that other politico/runner, Michael Dukakis, in the Boston Marathon (which Dukakis ran)?

I seem to recall some other politician claiming in recent years to have run a marathon in a certain time, and it was found to be a bogus performance. Details not remembered.

Never mind...I just saw the Bernie Sanders news story from FloTrack, which mentioned that the lying culprit was Paul Ryan, who had claimed a 2:50 marathon.

He ran 4:30 in the '50s or'60s of course he was one of the better milers in NYC. Probably one of the better milers in the US.

gahagand wrote:

He ran 4:30 in the '50s or'60s of course he was one of the better milers in NYC. Probably one of the better milers in the US.

A 4:37 run in the 50s or 60s did not make anyone one of the better milers in the USA.

Hell, Ryan ran a 3:55 in HS in the early 60s

Thomas Jefferson, miler, politician wrote:

Never mind...I just saw the Bernie Sanders news story from FloTrack, which mentioned that the lying culprit was Paul Ryan, who had claimed a 2:50 marathon.

Here is the clip of Ryan speaking:

After this was questioned, Ryan clarified that he mispoke/misremembered and was off by an hour. Later, Grandmas Marathon provided the results of the 1990 Grandmas where Ryan ran a 4:01 gun time in the days before chip timing. Presuming Ryan lined up in the middle of the pack, this would likely would have finished in a little under four hours according to his Casio.

Notorious truth tellers Harry Reid and John Kerry have made claims of respectable marathons but have never been able to provide proof. Obama claimed to have been a great basketball player when he was younger who did not start on his high school basketball team because of racism. It turns out he rode the bench on merit (several players on the team were black) and later apologized to his high school coach.

Thomas Jefferson, miler, politician wrote:

Never mind...I just saw the Bernie Sanders news story from FloTrack, which mentioned that the lying culprit was Paul Ryan, who had claimed a 2:50 marathon.

Yeah, Paul Ryan is a huge liar. The supposed “numbers guy” couldn’t remember he actually ran 4 hours plus and that he has never hiked a 14er.

He is a awful disgusting excuse for a human and his children and family should be ashamed of him. He will go down as one of the architects of American decline by not slashing government spending (as he and the GOP have repeatedly said they want to do) when he and the GOP has total control of the federal government. Instead he took the spineless, no integrity route of massively cutting taxes with no plan to pay for those cuts.

Wutt? wrote:

gahagand wrote:

He ran 4:30 in the '50s or'60s of course he was one of the better milers in NYC. Probably one of the better milers in the US.

A 4:37 run in the 50s or 60s did not make anyone one of the better milers in the USA.

Hell, Ryan ran a 3:55 in HS in the early 60s

Sure and the high school record in 1957 was 416. It got destroyed over the next 8 years. If a guy ran a 415 today, would you be ok with then calling themselves one of the better HS milers in USA? We are talking about a guy who was good, but a notch below the elite level.

I give him a lot of room on this considering the republican in the top office during his campaign claimed he was THE best baseball player anywhere in the U.S. and the Yankees were begging him to play for them.

NYC has never really been much of a hot bed for mid distance to distance, save for the occasional flash of 4 x 800 meter squads. Sort of like being the state champ in, say, North Dakota or Delaware, about equivalent to top 5 in a competitive sectional meet in a real state. Big fish in a tiny tiny pond.

Wutt? wrote:

gahagand wrote:

He ran 4:30 in the '50s or'60s of course he was one of the better milers in NYC. Probably one of the better milers in the US.

A 4:37 run in the 50s or 60s did not make anyone one of the better milers in the USA.

Hell, Ryan ran a 3:55 in HS in the early 60s

The way that Bernie put it completely checks out. Based on his times he probably either won or was toward the front of the field in the races when he was at his best, making him "one of the better" runners in the city.

He makes no claim about being "the best" or going beyond the city to the state or northeast or the country. Nor does he say he was among the best over a decade or two. His comment would clearly be limited to a year or two period when he was at his best.

I rate this comment as True.

This idea of one miler being better than another is unfair. In a race everyone should hold hands and finish together. Better yet, an enlightened few should get to decide who finishes when. We need to stop this evil "competition".

Bernie '20!

Note that he doesn't say specifically that he was one of the best high school milers, but just one of the best milers in the city period. Was he really better than most of the collegiate/adult milers in NYC?

Taken literally, anyone who is an above average miler is one of the better milers.

He ran 4:37 back in the 1950s from a city program where there are not a lot of places to run, and in that era, he placed in a city championships or sectionals race, so he was in fact one of the better milers in NYC, as he said. This was covered extensively in 2016.

A telling quote of Sanders about the national media, from right after the miler quote is this, and we all should take heed of it:

"There's too much focus on individuals and not enough focus on the American people and what their needs are."