Sarah Palin had a faster marathon time than Paul Ryan? Yep

Of all the things to lie about, why Paul Ryan chose his marathon time is a great mystery. As you may know, Ryan boasted in a radio interview that he used to run marathons, and his best time was under three minutes, or perhaps even the high twos. Then Runners World busted him on it, and a campaign spokesman was forced to admit that Ryan had run one marathon in his life, and his time was 4 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.

OK, so he fudged a bit a lot on his marathon time. You should hear me talk about the last fish I caught. The thing is, though, that Ryans Fib has taken on a life of its own people arent letting this go. Especially after The Atlantic crunched the marathon numbers of four recent Vice Presidential candidates.

John Edwards best marathon time was 3:30, which beats Ryan pretty badly. Know who else had a better time? Sarah Palin. At 3:59, she beat Ryan by about two minutes.

Whats awe-inducing about Palins feat is that she accomplished it at 41 after having four children, while Ryans mark was set at 20 and Edwards best came at 30. There are only about 40 thousand women who were that fast or faster in 2011. (More comparisons: The average marathon time for a woman aged 40-44 in 2011 was 4:47:34. The average for a man aged 20-24 was 4:22:48.)

Chart from The Atlantic:

If you find that your best marathon time is embarrassingly high, theres something you can do. Train harder? Ha ha, no, of course not. Just use this handy Paul Ryan Marathon Time calculator.