Who Won our 2017 Running Warehouse USAs Prediction Contest? A Pro, an Olympic Trials Qualifier, a 3:40 1500m Runner and an All-State High School Runner
by LetsRun.com
July 11, 2017
The 2017 LetsRun.com Running Warehouse USAs Prediction Contest is in the books and it’s time to announce those who didn’t go home devastated in the contest, and that would be our prize winners.
Remember There is One Place That Stands Out to Buy Your Shoes Online RunningWarehouse.com
While half of LetsRun.com visitors live in their parents’ basement, the other half is super cool, interesting, and successful. That was definitely the case with our USAs contest winners.
The overall winner was Brian Atkinson, and he definitely represents the portion of the LRC audience bringing in the big bucks and dropping sub-14-minute 5ks on the weekend with a hot spouse.
Brian and Kayla Atkinson (RunnersWorld Profile On Them Here)
Brian’s currently lives in Tampa, Florida, where he’s a 4th-year medical student at the University of South Florida. Medical school must be a breeze because Brian had time to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials last year (72nd place) thanks to his 1:04:46 half marathon in Indianapolis. Despite those accomplishments, it is open to debate who the most accomplished runner is in Brian’s family. He ran collegiately at Duke but so did his wife, Kayla Atkinson (formerly Hale), who was a three-time Foot Locker finalist in high school. Brian and Kayla are actually from the same hometown, but went to rival high schools. Runners World has a nice profile on them here. Congrats to Brian for coming out on top in our contest. He gets a $100 Running Warehouse gift certificate and the New Balance shoe of his choice.
There was a three-way tie for second in our contest.
Two former Stanford runners, Brendan Gregg and Justin Brinkley, were two of our second place finishers (Justin ended up finishing 4th via our tiebreaker but we’re still giving him a $100 Running Warehouse gift certificate. Our other top 3 get the gift certificate and the New Balance shoe of their choice). Brendan graduated from Stanford in 2012 and has been running professionally for the Hanson-Brooks team since then. He’s run 28:03 for 10,000m and was 8th at the Olympic Trials last year.
Brendan Gregg
Brendan has been battling injuries this spring and this was the first USATF national meet he has not run in since 2012 as a result. However, he made the most of a bad situation while experiencing USAs as a fan, and as a result came out as a winner in our contest.
Justin graduated from Stanford in 2016, where he was a 3:40 1500m runner. He now lives in the birthplace of LetsRun.com founders Weldon and Robert Johnson, Dallas, Texas, where he works in brand and sports marketing for ROKA, a performance sportswear and eyewear company that got into running last year.
Our other second place finisher is Maya Sadler-Stovall from Illinois. Just 16 years old, Maya is an all-state runner in Illinois. We hope everyone has enjoyed thinking they have a chance in these contests because Maya may start winning them all. She said she must have an intuition for these things as she picked Shalane Flanagan’s marathon time at the Rio Olympics correctly as well.
New Balance WT10
Thanks to Running Warehouse for sponsoring the contest, along with New Balance for the shoes. Maya will be wearing the New Balance WT10 v1 (Tornado/Blue) and Brian the Fresh Foam Zante. Since Brendan runs professionally for Brooks, he’s letting his wife pick a pair of shoes.
Thanks for playing and get ready for the Worlds contest from London.
Congratulations to all of our winners and to everyone who played in our contest. Thanks to RunningWarehouse.com for sponsoring our contest and New Balance for the prizes. Running Warehouse is the leader in online running retail for a reason.
If you played in the contest and want to check your scores, use the form below. If you want to see the top 30 leaderboard, click here.