I just read how would be Vice President, Paul Ryan "mis-remembered" his marathon time from 20 years ago and I think it says a lot about him and our country's obsession with perceived accomplishment. Who does not remember their marathon time??
I mean it's a race against the clock and there is only one winner. I remember my best time over 30 years ago- it was 3 hours 42 minutes 12 seconds. Who cares? It's about what you can do.
Now don't get me wrong. I hate losing. When our bike race team failed to make the
"Little 500" my Junior year at I.U. after giving about every ounce I could to train
not only could I not watch the race, I went to train the next semester by myself at Virginia Tech staying in my brother's dorm to wash away the disappointment before returning in the Spring to I.U.
Now you can say,as Paul Ryan did, my brother ribbed me about rounding down to 3 hours and that might be exusable if if you're at the maturity level of a pre-adolescent but not the person of character I want a heartbeat away from the presidency or coaching young people. Nothing wrong with the run/walk thing. Self actualization in sports is about laying it on the line and being content with what YOU can achieve.
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LOL, well, as another runner-med person I can honestly say I forget my running times ALL the time. Including my PRs. But that does not mean that I grossly mis-exaggerate. Even today I wrote a blog post on choosing to not race in the half and didn't remember my time from the course last year (as I have pr'd and won half marathons since then) but instead had to write about minute/mi pace. The issue really is not that he didn't worry about something that isn't at all relevant to his political career, but that he deceived himself and believes in him self so much that he changed his time by an hour. That may be some sort of psychological symptom. I mean finishing a marathon when you have a full schedule and aren't a runner is an accomplishment. I know some people who really really kicked *ss to get that ~4 hour time and that is SO much more impressive than my sub-3 hour time because I'm a soccer player and a running fanatic. That he can't be proud of his non-competitive but relative accomplishment and instead is delusional may be the bigger issue.... not the memory :)
I couldn't help publishing my own take on the whole thing (I hadn't heard about it until your post). I figured you're my dad's soccer friend and may enjoy this: http://niceeicee.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-medical-studentrunnerpsychologists.html
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