A conversation between East Portland Blog and Lawrence Spaulding:
EPB: Are you still running?
LS: Yeah, I have a hamstring strain and I am not training for anything, but I still run ten miles or less.
EPB: But you did run marathons at some point?
LS: Yeah, but like I said I am not training for one now, because my hamstring is just not that great.
EPB: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
LS: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
EPB.: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
LS: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
Ok, the above conversation is a fiction. East Portland Blog and I did not have this conversation. But unlike the truth teller’s version of this conversation, (see below) a significant part of it is true. While I did not run Grandma’s Marathon in 1990 with Paul Ryan, I ran it in 1988, 1989 and 1991. My times in those races were: 2:56 (1988) 3:23 (1989) and 2:57 (1991).*
I have no idea if Paul Ryan was fibbing or had just forgotten that his time at that marathon was 4:01, not in the 2:50s, but it is problematic in either case. Here is how actual the interview went in a Hugh Hewitt radio interview on August 22.
H. H.: Are you still running?
P. R.: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or [less].
H. H.: But you did run marathons at some point?
P. R.: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
H. H.: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
P. R.: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
H. H.: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
P. R.: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
If a straight out lie, well, then there is something potentially pathological about someone on a nationally broadcast radio show fibbing about what can pretty quickly be checked and shown to be false—as was shown in Runner’s World magazine quickly demonstrated.
But if it wasn’t a lie, rather an all-too-convenient misremembering, it is still worrisome. I am willing to believe that most of us and most politicians shade the truth to our benefit, and there is perhaps no bright line that determines when one goes too far in such shading. But, Ryan saying his marathon PR (personal record) was “Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something” is problematic. It is not a little shading of the truth. It is a whopper, the sort of thing that if said among fellow runners, and later found to be false, causes fellow runners to think, “oh, he’s that guy, what a blow hard” and never really trust any claim again. When “that guy” takes off from the parking lot, the coffee shop or the smoothie bar after a run, leaving behind stories of a great track workout on his own or his super-fast 5k no one saw, the other runners wag their heads at each other, saying “aww, come on man, I don’t believe any of it.”
The scale of the misremembering here is just too suspect, especially the semi detail Ryan offered. Saying he ran “Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something” indicates Ryan knows somewhere in his mind the significance of the sub three hour mark for amateur runners. It identifies a group we might call elite amateurs; it is still a long way from Olympic qualifying, but also is significantly faster than qualifying for Boston marathon, often seen as career running goal for many marathoners.
Of course, there is no shame in running a 4:01 marathon; I hope not because I ran a 3:59 earlier this summer. Indeed for Ryan as only 19 or 20 years old to run a marathon at all was a notable feat. But notice also that in the interview he interrupts to add the kicker: “I was fast when I was younger, yeah.” If he remembers anything at all about a four hour marathon, it is NOT FAST. In fact part of what makes running a four hour marathon so grueling is that it is a slow plodding for a very long time, likely painfully slow. So Ryan wasn’t just putting his thumb on the scale, but leaning with his elbow on the scale. This seems to me where the real deceit lies. He could have easily said, “well, it’s not much of a PR, I never really got into marathon distance, but I was happy to finish—my brother is the real runner in the family.” That would have been pleasing humility, instead we get puffery.
The bit about Ryan’s brother comes from a statement he issued to The New Yorker through a spokesman Friday, where Ryan explained “’That he’d just mixed things up: ‘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.’”
His brother ran Boston last year? This means someone in his life, someone close enough to give him a “good ribbing over dinner,” is still training for marathons, running them well enough to qualify and run in Boston. The details man Paul Ryan knows this, knows what running fast means.
(By the way, my brother’s marathon PR is about 5 minutes faster than my own. Each about 25 years ago. And yes I still know the times pretty exactly.)
So does any of this matter for politics? Maybe or maybe not. Clearly, Paul Ryan’s marathon times do not matter. Clearly, Paul Ryan’s marathon times do not matter. And a little artful resume building or story embellishing doesn’t ruin a political career. Ask Vice-President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But Paul Ryan status as a leader of his congressional party and VP candidate has risen in part because of his own claims of being a teller of truths and courage to face them. This reputation, deserved or not, is now teetering on the brink. His acceptance speech at the Republican Convention was so filled with prevarications, lies, misleading claims that both the mainstream press and conservative press have stepped beyond the usual stance of reporting the other side’s challenges, to just detailing his lies and deceit.
This is a risk for Ryan. Special scrutiny will now be given to his speeches, his interviews, his budget plan, floor speeches, even off hand remarks. Minor infractions that might have previously been passed over now will get raised as part of a troubling pattern. And all during a season in which the juices of campaigning will encourage more truth bending than usual.
*When I first heard about this and the connection of Paul Ryan’s marathon time kerfuffle and that the event he referred to was in the early 90s (the campaign first said ’91) I hoped maybe we had run it together. So, you might ask, did I really remember my times down to the minute exactly? The truth is no, but pretty close. I remembered I ran two sub three hours, each roughly between 2:55 and 2:59, and one a bit under 3:30. I had to check my running diaries to get the exact times. I know my PR time to the minute (and I think the second), and at the time only a year or two older than was Ryan when he ran his PR. [Click here to return.]
