Running a sub-3 hour marathon is an impressive feat. It qualifies you for Boston (in any category). It puts you in the same hour slot as the world record holders. It’s the kind of time that makes you a serious contender in any race. As if completing a marathon isn’t enough cred for bragging rights, completing one in the time it takes most people to complete a half-marathon also gives you enough cachet to do things like wear your race jacket to black tie events, accessorize every outfit with your finisher’s medal and get a tattoo of the road runner meeping “see you sucker!” on the back of your calf so that in future races everyone can admire it as you pass them.
There’s something else about running a sub-3 marathon (or running a marathon at all) that you should know: It’s incredibly hard to lie about. American Vice Presidential candidate* Paul Ryan found this out the hard way a few days ago when he laid claim to a finishing time in “the high twos” in a radio interview and somehow forgot about the invention of the Internet. Runner’s World magazine called his bluff – not hard to do since race times are meticulously tracked and recorded for posterity (or political fact checkers) on the web. It eventually came out that Ryan did indeed run a marathon but it was over 20 years ago and he finished in just over four hours, an accomplishment that would have been impressive… had he not said the other stuff first. Ryan later released a statement saying,
“The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin—who ran Boston last year—reminds 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.”
I bet Tobin did! So was this really just a rounding or memory error? Eh, my guess is that Ryan exaggerated it, a time-honored practice in sports. Unfortunately, unlike buffing up your home run record on your intramural baseball team or talking up that one snowboard jump you did that one time on that one hill, race records are not hard to verify and people get exceptionally testy about faking them. Remember all the hullabaloo about Katie Holmes running a marathon a few years ago? Even though she was essentially filmed every step of the way (a time the paparazzi actually came in handy?) people debated for months whether she really ran it, really finished it or really did it without a sports bra (the latter allegation at least appears to be true – my girls chafe in sympathy for her).
Being both an inherent dramatist and a runner, I kinda feel for Ryan. I remember after the very first race I ever ran, a lovely scenic 10K, calling my dad (who was also a runner in his day) and crowing about my awesome time. “I even ran the last mile under six minutes!” I enthused. My dad congratulated me on my race-day adrenaline coup and all would have been fine if I hadn’t kept bragging. Finally one of my friends, who was also in the race, pointed out dryly, “All your splits are online Charlotte.” And so they were! There wasn’t a sub-6 mile anywhere in them. I’d estimated based on my heart-rate monitor watch and “rounded” a couple of minutes off and came up with a time that while it wasn’t an hour+ off the mark, was still not factual. I was really embarrassed, mostly because it wasn’t just a simple mistake. I had exaggerated and I knew it. And that’s not the only time I’ve fudged something. No other examples come immediately to mind but my family is so renown for our embellishing capabilities that my husband has a name for it: “Hilton [my maiden name] hyperbole.” What can I say? I love telling stories.
The thing is, I had recently run a (single) mile in under six minutes – something I was super proud of since my best time in high school was over seven – and had that accomplishment tainted by a couple of friends who swore they too could do it despite not ever running or training for it. “It’s easy!” they bragged as they took off sprinting around the track. They stopped two laps short of a mile. “We beat your time by like 30 seconds!” they boo-yah’ed. “But you didn’t run the whole mile!” I exclaimed. “Yeah, we just got bored. But we totally could have finished those two laps at the same pace.” “But you DIDN’T!” “We could have!” “No you couldn’t!” and so it went on. I was ticked off about that argument for years afterward and that was just arguing with friends about running around a local track.
Bragging and sports (and politics) go hand-in-hand, always have and always will. But we’re not deep sea fishing. We’re not in a hot dog eating competition. We are running and when you run, all you have is your time. Faking your time inherently reduces the accomplishment of everyone who ran and didn’t lie. That was something I had to learn the hard way and I hope Ryan has now too.
What do you think of Paul Ryan’s gaffe? Have you ever exaggerated an athletic achievement? Anyone else naturally prone to exaggeration? Have you ever done something fun/crazy/kooky to commemorate an awesome personal record?
*I’m not making ANY political statements with this post. My aim was only to talk about someone in the public eye caught in an obvious “big fish story”. I learned my lesson about writing politics when I wrote a post for The Huffington Post about Sarah Palin’s bikini pictures being photoshopped. Even though I said zilch about her actual politics (or about her actual bikini), I got my first official death threat. Do not send me death threats. It makes me twitchy.
Yeah, what a mistake. The funny thing is, as you mentioned, his real time was impressive enough. Had he just stated his real time we all would have been impressed. Just finishing it is an accomplishment to be proud of. After all, he’s a politician, not a professional runner. Nobody would have expected a sub 3 marathon. But, when you go twisting facts…well, then it becomes a real problem, as he learned.
I don’t understand why he would lie about this either… It’s not like him saying he ran faster is going to sway anyones vote, that would be weird lol.
I literally just read this too. I have my own opinions about PR but I’m just chalking this up to it being 20 years ago. If that was his only marathon, as the article in runner’s world indicates, he probably just didn’t have much experience to reference and ended up exaggerating… a lot.
I think you kind of nailed it by saying exaggeration/fibbing and politics go hand-in-hand, which is why even though I AVOID AVOID AVOID politics when I can, I take whatever I hear with a grain of salt. To most people, any marathon time is impressive and there’s only a small percentage of people who would know just how impressive a sub-3 hour time is. Why fudge something like that and risk your meager credibility? I don’t get people at all.
With that said, I don’t think I’ve ever faked an athletic accomplishment. When I tell people I had a school record in swimming though, I don’t offer up that it was as part of a relay…does that count? Also, I’m thinking of getting a “26.2” sticker to put on the back of my car, just so people are impressed. I’m hoping that shuts them up about all of the running they do 😉
This was more than an exaggeration. An exaggeration would be claiming a 3:50 instead of the actual 4:XX. And the interviewer to whom he made the claim is a marathoner himself—when the interviewer commented, “Holy smokes,” Ryan backed it up saying, “I used to be fast, yeah.”
As a marathoner, I can assure you that no one mistakes a 4:XX for a 2:5X, even if it was 20 years ago. Not possible. As a Republican, I’m embarrassed by this.
Oh, and Abby, if you put a 26.2 sticker on your car people like me are going to talk to you MORE about running. Prepare for endless drivel about intervals, striders, and the like. If you’re trying to avoid us, that’s not gonna help!
Gee, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since it was 20 years ago. But I guess it is probably something that sticks with you. I actually did the opposite once. I signed up for the Avon 3-day which billed itself as 3 days, 60 miles and you camp out along the way. When they gave us the actual route, it was only 54 miles. I went around apologizing to the people who pledged me to walk that it was “only 54 miles.”
A friend of mine had this conversation with me recently. We are both drama queens and both fessed up to embellishing. The consensus was that if makes the story more interesting for the audience it is OK but if it is bragging or taking a shot at somebody else it is not OK. That is how we rationalize it. It’s all about entertaining the troops even at the cost of our integrity!
I am this way, only about how long wait times are for something. I convince myself it won’t be so much of a wait by making it the most optimistic length possible in my head. Once in a blue moon it is, and I don’t mind if I wait longer, but it drives my family crazy. They know now to add about 10 minutes to whatever I tell them…
As a runner, I’m proud to be part of a sport that is so admired that famous people want to lie about it. But ,really, Ryan, come on.
What non-runners don’t understand is that the mental ability to complete the full distance is half the battle. Runners have time AND distance. So, if someone quit running before the mile was up, they DIDN’T beat you.
I can quote all my PRs, and y’know, if you don’t remember exactly, just say you don’t remember. Finishing a marathon is accomplishment enough. Misquoting your time is just dumb, because either you don’t pay attention to details and aren’t going to check and verify your facts before you say them, or you are intentionally fibbing. I don’t like either one.
And you don’t beat my time until you run the same race in the same conditions, frankly, going beyond even just completing the same distance. A 5k PR on a track is not the same as a 5k PR in the wind and rain and hills. I’ve been scoping ironman races for the future and there are some with THOUSANDS of feet in elevation change and some with tens of feet of elevation change. The same time at IM Tahoe would be WAY harder than IM Florida.
I am a marathon runner with lots of running friends whose political beliefs vary widely (radical vegetarian co-op workers to please-don’t-bring-your-gun-to-running-group folks). However, agreement is near-universal about Paul Ryan’s gaffe: he knew he was lying when he stated that time and he assumed no one would care.
Haven’t we all been subject to those runners? (He still says he runs, btw, so the whole 20-years-ago thing doesn’t fly with me.) I can’t count the times I’ve participated in a training run and had to listen to someone brag loudly about their near-Olympic qualifying time. Guess what? If you can run a sub-3 marathon, you wouldn’t be in my 3:25-marathon training group. No one believes them. There’s always that poor sucker running next to them grunting responses (and yes, that poor sucker has been me before).
I wish folks like Paul Ryan would realize they are missing out on everything that the marathon is about: self-sufficiency, endurance, that beautiful moment when you realize you can go beyond the limits you have placed on your body, and the only camaraderie that happens in long distance running.
Okay, this intrigued me enough that I had to read more about marathons. Now I get that this is way beyond a faulty memory. Someone’s believing his own PR a bit too much .
I am going to try to hold myself back on the political part of this.. 😉 A BIG NO on what he did – he knows what he ran!
I have not fudged but man I would have loved to! 😉
Well, aside from what he said or did, the first thing that caught my eye about Ryan is that he would fall into my designation of being malnueurished and underweight. That thought my be exacerbatet because of mypersonal history. I guess saying it blunt an not being around the bush, I think he looks anorrexic.
(Please excuse typos – I am wavering down on Ambien!
Exaggeratting your time on a marathon you ran 20 years ago and having reporters check in on that seems like a waste of time!! We shoud talk issues here…jobless rate, economy, and the rising debt that we face as a country could impact each and every one of us!! It seems ironic that we NEED to make sure that Ryan stated his marathon times correctly, when we can get NO information about Obama’s past and are considered “out of line” when we ask!!
I hadn’t heard about this. I don’t get why he would embellish something like this. I kinda feel sorry (ok not really) for people being under such scrutiny.
I’m actually tend towards the opposite of embellishment. I know I’ve embellished before (usually when I don’t like them and intentionally want to annoy them) but most of the time I downplay my accomplishments. WhenI won the state champion title in taekwondo last year I always told people “it was just in my age group” or “it was just the color belt ring” The same thing when I won my figure competition. “Oh there weren’t many people in my class”…etc. I grew up in a family that bragging was so terrible that I’m really afraid to be proud of anything.
Running a mile under 6 minutes seems crazy fast to me. I’ve never run under 7 minutes. Well the last time I timed a mile was in 8th grade but I’m CERTAIN I couldn’t run a mile under 6 minutes. I’d probably have a hard time getting it under 10!
I don’t run, I don’t talk about running, I don’t have conversations with others that have to do with running, but even I would know that to lie about your finishing time is asking for trouble. I also know that (politcal statement comin atcha) I am not surprised. Politics and lying DO go hand in hand. I meant embellishing, not lying… 😉
I don’t embellish, I mumble. As in “I’ve finished two half marathons so far this year *mumbling* and DNF’d another. *remove marbles from mouth* Both of them were three hours *mumbling* and a lot of minutes that I really don’t want to talk about.” So I’d totally understand a “four hours and something, I don’t remember exactly, it was a long time ago.” This was different, and says a lot about the guy.
And he does look manorexic.
During the Olympics I posted/boasted on FB that I could beat the 1924 women’s 100 freestyle world record. (Yes, I had to go back that far, and yes, I looked it up) It was something like 1:24. Then I realized that was meters, and I could only hit that time for yards, and just barely. So I deleted the whole obnoxious thread I had started because I was so embarrassed that i couldn’t beat it!
It’s defined him. Maybe it’s a bad side effect of being a VP nominee. Sarah wasn’t bad, but endured so much dumpage while becoming or being made famous. Example is looking at Russia from her house? True in a way, but laughed about.
There is also an issue of his climbing history. The comments go off the chart funny, and totally at Paul’s expense after this article http://gawker.com/5940781/is-paul-ryan-lying-about-climbing-40-mountains-too-what-is-his-deal.
Stephen Colbert did a funny bit about this yesterday:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/418675/september-04-2012/paul-ryan-s-marathon-time-gaffe
Honestly I don’t have a problem with him lying about his marathon PB 20 years ago. I kinda feel sorry for him getting caught out- but also think it is funny. In 20 years I guarantee I will be embellishing on my athletic prowess and in 40 years I may believe I nearly qualified for the Olympics. It makes for a better story and memory! 🙂
At the half marathon I ran in April I spent 10 minutes in line at the porta potty and totally blew my goal time . I was really disappointed with my time but there’s no lying about it. Everyone checks everyone else’s times. I know I do because I want to see where I came in compated to my running buddies . Paul should have known that he couldn’t get away with this ‘fish story’. He may be caught up in how excited the media is about his P90X workouts that he forgot himself for a minute. Bet he won’t go there again.
Now I’m even doubting those P90X workouts. I bet he does the push-ups girly style on his knees.
Lying or fibbing about a workout performance is only going to come and bite you in the end.
I once lied about how fast I could run a race and then was humiliated when my body failed to cash the check my mouth wrote.
Never, ever, ever again.
I’m not convinced that his underestimation was just a case of clouded memory. A marathon is a big deal. Plus, he still runs, and his brother ran Boston Marathon. I don’t think he’s that ignorant of running times. Lying about his PR does not impress me. Of course, politicians from both parties exaggerate to some extent to get ahead.
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