The vice presidential hopeful acknowledged Saturday that he had
misstated his marathon time by more than an hour. He released a
statement correcting the record after Runner's World magazine found
evidence that he had completed one marathon and finished in just over
four hours.
Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt last month that he had run a "two hour and fifty-something" marathon. That's a pace of less than 7 minutes per mile for the 26.2-mile course - extremely fast for recreational runners.
Ryan said he should have rounded his marathon time to four hours, not three. http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/ryan-corrects-his-marathon-time-by-adding-hour-bv6nbja-168273966.html
When I was much younger and in much better shape, I ran 4 marathons after I graduated from high school and I know that when you run a marathon for the first time, you not only remember it as a sense of accomplish but you also remember the time, if not with a minute, certainly within a few minutes.
There is also significance to the 3 hour mark. Breaking 3 hours in a marathon makes you an elite runner. When I was running, breaking the 3 hour made you qualified to run in the Boston Marathon, the granddaddy of marathons. I never came close to the three hour mark- it takes a lot of hard work to reach that time.
In addition, if you add another hour to your time, you also add about 2 minutes a mile to your pace. There is a big difference between a 7 minute pace for a marathon and 9+ minutes per mile. You can stop and walk a little bit if you are running a 9 minute a mile pace.
So, is this a big thing? To runners who have tried or completed a marathon, it is a big deal, but for most people, it is not. It certainly not enough to disqualify Ryan to be vice president but it is disappointing.
On a different subject, I am a conservative, but unlike the liberal media and liberal bloggers, I will call out conservatives when they do wrong. I wonder why liberal bloggers and media members don't do the same?
Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt last month that he had run a "two hour and fifty-something" marathon. That's a pace of less than 7 minutes per mile for the 26.2-mile course - extremely fast for recreational runners.
Ryan said he should have rounded his marathon time to four hours, not three. http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/ryan-corrects-his-marathon-time-by-adding-hour-bv6nbja-168273966.html
When I was much younger and in much better shape, I ran 4 marathons after I graduated from high school and I know that when you run a marathon for the first time, you not only remember it as a sense of accomplish but you also remember the time, if not with a minute, certainly within a few minutes.
There is also significance to the 3 hour mark. Breaking 3 hours in a marathon makes you an elite runner. When I was running, breaking the 3 hour made you qualified to run in the Boston Marathon, the granddaddy of marathons. I never came close to the three hour mark- it takes a lot of hard work to reach that time.
In addition, if you add another hour to your time, you also add about 2 minutes a mile to your pace. There is a big difference between a 7 minute pace for a marathon and 9+ minutes per mile. You can stop and walk a little bit if you are running a 9 minute a mile pace.
So, is this a big thing? To runners who have tried or completed a marathon, it is a big deal, but for most people, it is not. It certainly not enough to disqualify Ryan to be vice president but it is disappointing.
On a different subject, I am a conservative, but unlike the liberal media and liberal bloggers, I will call out conservatives when they do wrong. I wonder why liberal bloggers and media members don't do the same?
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