Paul Ryan is Not the Fastest Marathon Running Candidate for High Office After All

September 2, 2012 Conejo Joe

This is not a politics blog but if someone running for office has run a marathon, my ears perk up. I'm a moderate, in fact, I'm so moderate that I'm thinking of founding a new political party called the Moderate Party. Some issues I side with the Republicans, others with the Democrats. I think the far right and far left are a bunch of ignoramouses. If I highlighted where I stand on fiscal, social and geopolitical issues, I think I would have the silent majority of the U.S. electorate supporting me. Conejo Joe for Emperor!

But I digress.

Even if I think a politician is a complete nincompoop (God I love that word), if they can run a solid marathon time, I give them respect, or at least some respect.

Case in point, Sarah Palin. While the thought of Sarah a heartbeat away from the Presidency scared the living daylights out of me, I was impressed that she was able to run a sub-4 hour marathon in 1995.

Which brings me to Paul Ryan. He recently claimed in an interview that he ran a sub-3 hour marathon. To quote him in his phone interview with Hugh Hewitt: "Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something." That would, to my knowledge, handily make him the fastest marathoner to run for high office in this country.

Well Runner's World confirmed that the only marathon Ryan has run was in 4:01:25 at age 20 at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. That puts him 2 minutes behind Sarah Palin, 17 minutes behind George W. Bush's Houston Marathon at age 47 and 3 minutes Eliot Spitzer's 1983 NY Marathon at age 24.

I get it if someone can't remember their exact times from a marathon, half marathon or 10K. But to actually say 2 hours, 50 something when it was actually 4 hours is almost sacrilegious.