Paul Ryan has admitted he shaved an hour off his best time in the marathon in an interview with Hugh Hewett last week. In the interview, Ryan claimed an outstanding personal best of under 3 hours.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes.
Lots of runners doubted it, and Runner's World magazine took up the chase...
Turns out it wasn't true, this is Ryan, after all.
Runner's World couldn't find any record of a Ryan marathon on the extensive internet databases and pushed the Ryan campaign for more information. Finally the campaign identified the race, Runners World looked it up, and found out that Ryan's time was actually more than 4 hours.
When confronted with Runner's World find by the New Yorker, Ryan came clean. Said he'd forgotten the time, was reminded by his brother, who "gave him a ribbing about it at dinner."
This is total bull. No marathoner forgets his or her personal best, much less by an hour. No way. He's gonna get crucified by runners, who know how important personal bests are and who don't look kindly upon those who lie about them.
Thanks to run26two and njhoo for posting diaries on this earlier today as the story developed.