Tim Walz cut nearly 12 minutes from his Twin Cities 10 Mile time on Sunday, running the course beside his daughter for the second consecutive October. By midweek, the former vice presidential nominee’s stopwatch had become an afterthought online.
The Minnesota governor, 62, finished in 1:26:15, Runner’s World reported.
That works out to an 8:45 pace and a 2,134th-place finish among 9,559 runners. It left 7,425 finishers behind him and placed him in the top quarter of the field.
Hope Walz, 25, ran right alongside him. She crossed the line at 1:26:26, only 11 seconds after her father, and the two carried consecutive bibs.
Runner’s World listed both runners’ ages and the field size in its report on the father-daughter run.
Last October, the pair covered the same 10 miles in 1:38:12. This year’s time beat that mark by 11 minutes and 57 seconds, a near 12-minute improvement across a single year.
An 8:45 pace means each mile averaged eight minutes and 45 seconds. Hope Walz’s finishing time landed just 11 seconds past his.
Twin Cities in Motion filmed the pair after they finished. Walz called the event the best urban marathon in America and said running it with his daughter “doesn’t get better.”
Hope Walz then posted a photo to Instagram under the caption “tc 10 mile! best race ever!”
The caption used lowercase letters and two exclamation points. Her wording matched the upbeat tone of her father’s remarks.
The photo shows the governor on a paved path with his arm around her. He wears a black long-sleeve shirt, a cap and gray shorts.
A dark patch spreads across the front of the shorts, concentrated at the crotch. The post offers no explanation for it and never mentions it.
The image reached a far larger audience Tuesday, October 6, when Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) posted it on X.
The account wrote “Tim Walz’s daughter posted this picture on her IG” and added “100% Not AI.” The post pointed readers back to the image on Hope Walz’s Instagram account.
Responses appeared in two places: beneath Hope Walz’s Instagram post and in threads on X. Many used crude language to describe the patch.
One commenter asked, “At what mile did Timmy piss himself?” Another wrote, “Mr Laney you pissed yourself.”
Further replies read “Dry your crotch off that’s disgusting,” “Looks like Timmy needed to plug that leak,” and “That’s definitely piss.”
On X, a user named Clerpatriot posted, “Did Tim Walz piss his pants? Why would his daughter post this?!” Clerpatriot then offered two guesses: that she had not noticed, or that she “secretly hates her father.”
Another X user tagged the governor directly. “No bathroom available, @Tim_Walz? I guess it’s cool to just go in your pants these days,” the user wrote.
Nick Sortor joined the thread. He asked why she had posted “a photo of him p*ssing his pants” and whether it was “some sort of humiliation ritual.”
His post appeared on X, the same platform where Clerpatriot and Libs of TikTok shared their reactions.
PJ Media’s Matt Margolis covered the reaction in an article published October 7. He wrote that he first assumed someone had altered the photo.
Margolis then checked Hope Walz’s Instagram page himself. He found the stain there.
Across all of those threads, no second explanation caught on. The comments ranged from jokes aimed at the governor to guesses about why his daughter shared the picture.
Several commenters framed the photo as an oversight by Hope Walz, while others suggested she had posted it on purpose.
The sequence unfolded within four days. The race took place Sunday, Libs of TikTok shared the photo Tuesday, and PJ Media published its article Wednesday.
Both the Twin Cities in Motion video and the Instagram photo came from the period right after the finish.
As of Wednesday, neither Walz nor his daughter had addressed the comments. The photo remained on her Instagram page under its original caption.
