Current Miami mayor and future Republican presidential primary dropout Francis Suarez recently tweeted to boast about his time in a 5K race:
This is a very bad tweet. It’s bad on its face, because the speed with which someone runs is completely irrelevant to their ability to govern. To give just one extremely obvious example, Franklin Roosevelt led America through World War II despite being paralyzed from the waist down.
But this is also just such a weak flex, given Suarez’s time. I would ordinarily consider it poor form to critique someone’s race result, but given the vaingloriousness of the post, it simply must be said: Suarez’s time is nothing to brag about. It’s fine, and that’s about it.
To make it worse, Suarez isn’t even leading the pack in the utterly moronic category of “presidential candidate 5K times”. Instead, he is at best a distant 3rd, with two readily available answers to this tweet’s idiotic demand. Current candidate Vivek Ramaswamy putting up a 23:04 back in 2021 and 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke dropping a 21:04 last year.
When it comes to running, unless you’re one of the elites, it’s best to focus on competing against yourself. There will always be someone faster than you, probably lots of people, and that’s OK. Just get out there, do your thing, and be satisfied. Because if you try to rub your mediocre time in the world’s face, you will be laughed at by the many, many people who know better. Humility is a far better path, not to mention a better indicator of a good leader than the ability to run 3.1 miles.
The rotten cherry on top of this garbage sundae of a tweet, however, is its statement that Suarez “placed 6th”. This is a lie by omission. In point of fact, Suarez placed 6th in his age group (Men 45-49), a group that featured just 16 entrants. He finished over 3 minutes behind the age group’s winner, Phil Decker, who he would apparently have to agree deserves to be president even more. 🇺🇸 Vote Decker 2024! 🇺🇸
No, far from a true 6th place finish, the results show that Suarez’s not-at-all elite time put him 87th of 460 finishers. Coincidentally, that’s about where he can expect to place in the Republican primaries too.
