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| Ryan (right) with Tony Horton of the P90X Workout |
Some feathers got ruffled in Marathon City.
The Boston Globe ran a tart editorial today criticizing Wisconsin congressman and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan for understating his finish time from a 1990 marathon in Minnesota:
Virtually everyone who’s finished a marathon knows his or her time all too well. Whatever the number — whether it’s the 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds in which Paul Ryan ran a 1990 marathon in Minnesota, or something much faster or slower — nothing about those 26.2 miles is easily forgettable. Which is why the GOP vice presidential candidate’s boast that he ran a sub-three-hour marathon caused such a stir in a running community that frowns on rounding even a couple of minutes off one’s time.
Ryan exaggerated his time a couple weeks ago during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt — several days before his address at the Republican National Convention.
HH: What did you do in high school? Were you a speech and debate guy? Were you a bandie? What were you?
PR: No, I was student government and athletics, honor society, you know, that kind of thing. I was kind of a combination. I was class president my junior year. I was the school board rep my senior year. I lettered in varsity, you know, my first year in high school, mostly soccer and track. I was a distance runner and a soccer player. So kind of well-rounded. I can’t … I can play a cowbell. That’s about it for instruments.
HH: Are you still running?
PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or yes. [?]
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I has a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes.
Perhaps feeling chastened by the response to his RNC speech (or perhaps not, judging by an interview in The Des Moines Register today), the Craig High School grad sent a surprisingly intimate statement to Runner’s World late last week:
The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin — who ran Boston last year — remind me that he is the owner of the fastest marathon in the family and has never himself ran a sub-three. If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight.
UPDATE: The Journal Sentinel and none other than the Atlantic’s James Fallows are now checking into Ryan’s mountaineering claims.
