Biggest Loser tells a little white lie

I am a fan of the show The Biggest Loser. After running on Tuesday nights, and then eating way more than I should with my friends in my running group, I come home, and thanks to Tivo, I watch the show and zap all the commercials. A two hour show can be viewed in about 80 minutes.

This week, Dane was voted off right after weighing in and losing his 100th pound in 8 weeks....pretty amazing. He seems like a great guy, but because he has lost such a huge percentage of his weight, and had many more pounds to lose, I am guessing he was thought to be a threat to win the big prize, and he was voted off. The "reasons" cited for voting for him, was that he was the best suited to continue his weight loss at home. Maybe he was.

Seems that in the following weeks (the show is filmed several weeks back from "real" time) he ran a marathon with his wife, who is a petite woman and allegedly had trained for the 26.2 miler. Click here for a story on his accomplishments.

In the show, he and his wife were filmed crossing the finish line, and the digital clock seemed to read 5:53, but on the program, the Biggest Loser reported that he ran a 26 mile race in 3:53. I rewound it, and the clock looked more like it said 5:53 to my eyes. Someone goofed, or so it seemed.

I ran my PR 6 years ago at 153 pounds in 3:57, and gave it 110%. Dane seemed to be moving at a very leisurely jog, not at all an 8:54 minute/mile pace needed to run his supposed time. And seriously, is it even physically possible for a man weighing 312 pounds to run a sub 4:00? I know, he may have in fact lost more weight before running the race, but he was not running at that pace at all when on film.

Another explanation.Click here for his wife's story.

So, is she saying Dane ran 23 miles in 3:53? I doubt that as well. I do think it is awesome that Dane has aspirations to run a marathon. I bet he will do it. But why lie about what you actually did do? Tell it like it is. If you ran a half marathon in 3 hours and change, say so. So many people respect the contestants on this show. They are celebrities now. Why taint that by misrepresenting yourself?