Republic vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan takes fitness very, very seriously. Except when he's completely bullshitting about it. Runner's World reports that Ryan told a radio interviewer that he used to run marathons, before back trouble forced him to keep his runs under 10 miles, and his best time was "Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."
A time in the 2:50s would have put Ryan in the 200-500 range among Boston Marathon finishers this year. It would also, according to Runner's World, have made him the fastest recorded marathoner to run for president or vice president, ahead of John Edwards at 3:30 and George W. Bush at 3:44. If anyone had ever actually recorded Ryan running a marathon that fast, which no one did, because he didn't:
It turns out Paul Ryan has not run a marathon in less than three hours—or even less than four hours.
A spokesman confirmed late Friday that the Republican vice presidential candidate has run one marathon. That was the 1990 Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where Ryan, then 20, is listed as having finished in 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds.
Moral: Don't lie about marathons. Those people will bust you.