Running does not often make its way into politics. But when it does—such as House Speaker Paul Ryan’s claim to have run a marathon in less than three hours—we take notice. To wit:

Buried within a 3,000-word New York Times profile of Stephen Miller, the frequently divisive adviser to President Donald Trump, was a brief anecdote about Miller’s equally brief running career. Back in 2003, after competing in a tennis match at a rival high school, the 16-year-old Santa Monica High student wandered over to the track and, according to writer Matt Flegenheimer, “jumped, uninvited, into the final stretch of a girls’ track meet, apparently intent on proving his athletic supremacy over the opposite sex.”

Unfortunately, that was as deep as the story went in exploring the incident, leaving us with, well, a lot of questions about Miller’s “feat.” So we sought out classmates, coaches, and officials to figure out exactly what went down.

1. How long was the “final stretch” of the race Miller joined?

We’re not entirely sure since no one seems to have witnessed it. But Miller’s high school classmate Nick Silverman, who Miller later told the story to in class, remembers that it was roughly the last 50 meters of a 400-meter race. Despite jumping in late, Miller claimed he “won” the race and showed his superiority without even warming up.

2. Wait, did this actually happen?

“Certainly not under our watch,” says Tania Fischer, Santa Monica High head track coach who was an assistant coach in 2003. The White House confirmed the tale, presumably through Miller, but no one at the school’s athletic department saw it or remembers it, no one at the state’s athletic federation received complaints or heard of this happening at a sanctioned meet, and no classmates we spoke to witnessed it. They only heard Miller’s account. Still, says Silverman, “I had no doubts he would do something like that. It was definitely on brand for him.”

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3. What was Miller trying to prove?

Depends on whom you ask. Silverman says Miller “ruined this race just to make this warped point about, I don’t know, that he thinks that men are athletically superior to women” both to the girls on the track and possibly to those who would not date him. “He liked Star Trek and James Bond and this old-school alpha-male archetype, so I imagine there could have been some insecurity on a physical level.”

But fellow classmate Chris Moritz offers a friendlier take: “This incident can be chalked up to a simple high school prank devoid of any underlying politics,” he says. “Stephen was—and is—jocular and boldly good-humored.” Moritz adds that a “mundane prank” someone pulls at 16 years old has no bearing on who someone grows up to be and that stories like that in the New York Times (and presumably this one) are a petty disservice to readers.

4. Okay, so why not start at the beginning of the race?

He may have arrived at the track midrace, but either way Miller probably would have lost. Those who have run a competitive 400-meter race know just how difficult the last 50 meters are and how nice his fresh legs would have been down the backstretch. Without a race strategy beyond “run real fast” Miller likely would have burned out after the second turn.

5. What age or skill level were these girls?

Again, no witnesses: “I’m sure he would have framed it as it being the highest level of women’s competition,” Silverman says. The good news for Miller is that 2003 Los Angeles area high school runner Allyson Felix was not at this event. Because the six-time Olympic gold medalist would have literally run circles around him.

6. What would happen if someone did join a high school track event midrace?

“There would be so many factors involved with something like this,” says Brian Seymour, director of the California Interscholastic Federation. “It would go to the jury of appeals and they would rule if he impeded anyone. If he did impede a runner, the race would be re-run. I am sure we would have jumped on him at the finish as the safety of the athletes is priority No. 1. It would have been a huge mess either way. Not something a sane individual would brag about.”

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7. How athletic was Miller, really?

By all accounts, he was a skilled varsity tennis player at a school with a pretty decent program. Moritz adds that Miller also ran cross-country and was an avid golfer. But according to Silverman, “He wasn’t out of shape, but he wasn’t ripped or even built like a finely tuned tennis player. He was thin in the way an older man is thin. He had an older man’s body at age 16.”

8. How much does high school tennis skill translate to the track?

It does not. A Sports Illustrated analysis during the 2015 Australian Open showed that top-ranked player Novak Djokovic ran fewer than 5,000 meters through three matches of play. Serena Williams, who once famously dropped out halfway through her own 5K, only ran 4,509 meters in seven matches while winning the 2014 US Open. That said, her 2014 US Open finals opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, ran a BQ marathon time of 3:26:33 in New York, so anything is possible.

9. What has the reaction of woman runners been?

Empowering. Olympian Alexi Pappas challenged Miller to race on Twitter immediately after the New York Times story came out. “As a female elite athlete, I’m passionate about sticking up for the girls,” she says. “When I started running, probably at around the age of the girls in the story, we used to have coed races because it was such a small track program. So I did race guys back then and I beat them all.”

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ill race him any day https://t.co/VMgcnrvhaj — Alexi Pappas (@AlexiPappas) October 9, 2017

10. What race distance would her ideal matchup be?

Pappas thinks a beer mile might be fun, but she’d love to take him on in the 10,000-meter, her specialty. “I’ve found that the 10K is really this wonderful, beautiful test of mental and physical endurance, and bravery, and I think it would be a very fitting race distance.”

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