Meet the Winners of the 2015 LRC Running Warehouse USAs Prediction Contest

by: LetsRun.com
July 19, 2015

With an incredible Monaco meet in the books, people are gradually going to start shifting their attention to the World Championships.

Before we do that we need to honor the winners of the winners of the 2015 LRC Running Warehouse USA Nationals Prediction Contest.

One of the best things about our prediction contests are they remind us of the amazing people who visit LetsRun.com and their close bond to the sport we all love.

New Balance Vazee Pace Is Here

We had a two-way tie for first place. Tieing for first place in the contest were Taylor Gulley and Daniel Yesilonis. Since a glitch on our part delayed us realizing Daniel won the contest we’re not going to break the tie and give them both the first place prize. Taylor and Daniel receive a $250 Running Warehouse Gift Certificate and a free pair of the new New Balance Vazee Pace shoes which “is the perfect light-weight trainer from your everyday training to your fastest tempos”

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If Taylor’s name sounds familiar, it should. Not only is he the assistant coach at the University of Tulsa (where he helped coach NCAA mile champ Chris O’Hare), but he also won our 2013 NCAA Prediction Contest.

While most of you are doing your best to try and crack the top 25 of one of our contests, Taylor is winning multiple contests. Pretty amazing.

Taylor says he has no specific picking strategies but is just a big student of the sport. Taylor’s dad, Steve is the head coach at Tulsa, and used to be at Baylor where LRC coaching guru John Kellogg attended school.

Taylor has some a tip for those of you wanting to get more knowledgeable about the sport. Read the “Good Threads, Training Info, Injury Info, Nutrition Info, Other Stuff” thread. Taylor writes:

Taylor Gulley Our Champion

“Funny timing with your e-mail though, as recently I have been going back through the incredible Training Info thread at the top of the message boards. I do not think people realize the incredible amount of insightful discussion or information is in some of those threads. I believe in always trying to increase your knowledge base of the sport and this thread has helped me do so for years, including when I first got into coaching. I am personally a huge fan of John Kellogg and have really enjoyed reading his informative posts!”

Daniel’s story is pretty cool too as he’s not a top runner or coach, but has come to love professional track and field, hopefully a little bit in part thanks to LRC. He writes:

“I don’t really have major connection to the sport of running. I really enjoyed running on my track team in high school even though I was atrocious. So bad that my 400 PR was worse than three girls on the team. I enjoyed more of the social and health aspects of track rather than the hard training. I’m not a very serious runner and run only a few times a week now but it is definitely something I enjoy. I do however love watching Elite Track and Field because in my opinion it is the ultimate test of athleticism. I’ve always watched the Olympics but recently have also started watching the Diamond League, NCAAs, and World Championships. My strategy was the use the IAAF Lists as a guide and give special emphasis to the collegians since they were probably still in form from NCAAs.”

Finishing just a point back of Taylor and Daniel was Henry Herold. Henry’s story speaks for itself:

“My name is Henry Herold and I love running as I’m sure the vast majority of the Letsrun visitors do. I’m originally from Augusta, Maine but over the last few years I’ve been biking across America in search of my true self. Each stop I make I constantly find my self checking running blogs and stats. I’m some what of a nomad, always taking different turns and paths. I have now been calling the little town on the central California coast of San Luis Obispo home. I work as a fishermen’s assistant, pulling loads of clams out of the Pacific Ocean. I am involved in running because of my high school cross country past. This sport is so unique because you are constantly defining limits you thought you had. No other sport are you repeatedly pushing your body to limits. I have great respect for all runners and I hope everyone out there continues doing what they love. As for this competition, I honestly just picked two favorites and then an underdog. It’s a blessing to have won a pair of New Balance shoes as I am pretty poor and my current shoes are long over due. I am also proud to say I can eat two watermelons whole.”

We had to go to our second tie breaker (# of second places picked correctly ) to break a 6 way tie for third.  Our third place winner was Andrew Parkins who also wins a pair of New Balance Vazee Pace shoes. Andrew is a financial analyst for GE, living in Salem, VA and an avid runner with a 2:39:06 marathon best at Chicago. He runs for quite a few local clubs,  RunAbout Roanoke, Roanoke Valley Elite, Star City Striders, Team Mountain Junkies, and Team General Electric.

Our fourth place finishers on the tiebreaker are not going to go home empty handed. They get the LetsRun.com “Not Rupp Certified” tshirts. 4th place is definitely “Not Rupp Certified”. (click here if you’d like to order a shirt).

Mike Farrell was one of our fourth place finishers and he’s got a cool story how LetsRun.com made him a fan of track and field. He writes:

“I’m probably not the typical LRC’er.  37 year old married father of 2 kids.  Never ran competitively, but picked up running in my 20s.  I’ve been to the Boston Marathon start line 9 years in a row but DNF’ed twice (collapsed lung 2010, food poisoning 2013).

Never even followed track and field (other than the Olympic 100M) until I stumbled on this site about 8-9 years ago.  Now it’s my favorite sport to watch.

Thanks again and great site!”

Joshua Pinyan said “4th place sucks. I feel like Ben Blankenship..”  Josh is 32 years old; been running half of my life; ran in NCAA Division II; moved up to marathon in 2010 (3x Boston Marathon Qualifier); never been that good, but always been a fan of the sport.

Frank Zhu was another of our 4th place finishers. He writes, “I’m originally from Ann Arbor, MI and I ran cross country and track throughout high school under Kent Overbey at Huron High School. I stress fractured my navicular bone in my foot the summer before my senior year which took almost two years to completely heal. After recovering from that injury, I started running just for fun during the first two years of college (20-30 miles/week) but decided about a year and half ago to train more seriously (90-100 miles/week) for half marathon/marathons. I’ll be making my Boston Marathon debut next spring where I hope to get as close to 2:30 as possible.”

A big thanks to everyone who played and for Running Warehouse for sponsoring the contest. Running Warehouse has free 2 day shipping on shoes and free returns and has competitive running at its heart. Joe Rubio at Running Warehouse is a running lifer and former World Championship 10,000m team member Scott Bauhs works at Running Warehouse and you can tell by their detailed shoe descriptions that are used in the LRC Better Running Shoe site.

If you played in the contest and want to check your scores click here. If you’d like to see the winning picks, click here.

Click here to visit Running Warehouse.

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