Gwen Jorgensen’s High School Teammate, A Coach of Geniuses, and 20th Placer at Olympic Marathon Trials Win Running Warehouse Summer Prediction Contests
by LetsRun.com
August 13, 2018
Forget about Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Mondo Duplantis. The teenage wonderkids were born with good genes. They’re competing against a limited pool.
The real winners this summer are the winners of the LetsRun.com RunningWarehouse.com Prediction Contests. We’ve got the winners of our USAs, NCAAs, and London Marathon contests below.
The winners showcase the interesting people who make up the LetsRun.com community.
First Placer Coaches Geniuses at CalTech
Ben Raphelson
We’ve had a rocket scientist win one of our contests, and now we have had someone who coaches rocket scientists win our contest. The overall winner of our USAs contest was Ben Raphelson, who is the head cross country and track coach at DIII Caltech, the school that has had 72 Nobel laureates.
Ben’s a former distance runner, but now he’s responsible for all the events, so that gives him an unfair advantage. Plus, he credits NBC Gold, which he calls his “best purchase in years,” for helping him stay abreast of the track and field world and win the contest.
Ben wins a $100 Running Warehouse gift certificate and the Hoka One One Clifton 5.
2nd Placer in USAs Contest Ran in 2 Olympic Trials Marathons
Hoka One One Clifton 5 and a $100 Gift Certificate for Ryan
Ryan Meissen attributed “dumb-luck” to his second-place finish in the USAs contest. We beg to differ. He says he doesn’t run much anymore, but his running resume is quite impressive and capped with a 20th place finish in the 2004 Olympic Trials Marathon (he finished 60th in 2008). Ryan ran at UW-Whitewater and post-collegiately for Wisconsin Runner Racing Team. (bio on him from 2007 here). But his “greatest memories (from the sport) are from when I first started running and the people I met through running, especially my wife. I now live with my wife and son and daughter just outside of Milwaukee. I enjoy following the sport and trying to keep up with rest of my family on runs.”
Winner of NCAA Contest Was on High School Track Team of Olympian Bryshon Nellum and a Repeat Winner
Saucony Ride ISO and Running Warehouse gift certificate for our NCAA top 3
The winner of our NCAA Outdoor contest was Evan. Evan is 27 years old, lives in Brooklyn, New York, is in the film industry, and has won one of our prediction contests before. Evan wished to remain semi-anonymous so we’re not sharing his last name at his request. Who knows — people in the film industry might think it’s strange to win two nationwide track and field prediction contests.
Evan originally is from California where he was a distance runner at sprint power Long Beach Poly, where he was teammates with Olympic sprinter-to-be Bryshon Nellum. Evan said paying attention to the sprint world helped him win the NCAA contest, and acknowledged there is a great deal of luck.
Post “Thebusiness” was our 2nd place finisher in the NCAA contest and we haven’t been able to contact him/her. If you are thebusiness, please email us at letsrun@letsrun.com.
3rd Placer Hails from Eugene, Oregon… and got Andrew Wheating in his fantasy football league
Bailey running at Hayward Field
Third place in our NCAA contest was 18-year-old Bailey Sauter who hails from…Eugene, Oregon. It helps being from the running mecca of the US. Bailey writes:
I just graduated from South Eugene High School where I ran for the Axemen. I’ll attend Oregon State next year majoring in Electrical Engineering. My proudest achievements in the sport are winning our team’s eggnog mile (12oz of eggnog per lap) and convincing Andrew Wheating to join my fantasy football league. I’ve raced at Hayward every year since elementary school and was in the East Grandstand during the final race there. I’m a duck fan so my pick strategy favored Oregon a little which paid off with Jessica Hull’s win but hurt me a couple other places.
We asked Bailey how fast he ran the eggnog mile and he said 6:03. We also asked him if he was going to keep rooting for the Ducks since he was going to attend Oregon State. He said in men’s track he’ll root for Oregon (OSU does not have a men’s team) but for the other sports he’ll switch his allegiance to OSU.
London Contest Winner is Still PRing at 53
NB 1400v6 for the London contest winners
53-year-old John Garrity is someone you all might want to copy. First of all, he won our London Marathon prediction contest and a $100 Running Warehouse gift certificate and a pair of New Balance 1400 v6 shoes.
Secondly, John is still setting PRs at the age of 53. As he writes, “[I’m a] former competitive swimmer. Started running when my son was running track and cross country in high school. He stopped running, I kept going. The nice part of coming late to running is I’m still dropping my PR’s. I hope to keep that going for a long time.”
John is PRing not only because he’s newer to the sport but because he’s knocking out 60-70 miles per week. Currently, he’s run seven marathons and one ultra.
2nd Placer Makes Rhode Island Proud
We’ve long believed high school coaches are the lifeblood of LetsRun.com and second placer Carlton Bradshaw shows it. He’s a middle school teacher in Rhode Island and a high school coach in addition to being the Rhode Island Track Coaches Association’s Director of Indoor Track and Field. Carlton’s story shows once you become a runner you never shake it from your blood even if you think you have as he writes, “I was a high school runner and kind of lost contact with the sport until after college. Then I got involved with running road races and coaching (and the rest is history).”
Masters Ace Jeremy Brown 3rd in London Contest after finishing 2nd in Boston Contest
We already honored our 3rd placer, 41-year-old, Jeremy Brown, in our Boston Marathon contest write-up where he finished 2nd, but he deserves mention again as he was third in London contest. A very tough double. Jeremy is a professor of modern Chinese history at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
Jeremy Brown Teaching
Jeremy lives on top of Burnaby Mountain, which is a 10-minute walk from his office. He’s from Iowa, ran two years in college at Lewis & Clark, and then quit running competitively for nearly two decades (he tried to run while studying abroad in Harbin, China, but the pollution and black ice on the streets was too bad).
Now in “large part” because of “the Letsrun community pointing (him) toward smart training plans” Jeremy is racing competitively again. At age 39-41, he says he’s not running that fast, but we beg to differ as he’s bettered his lifetime PBs in every distance except 800.
Jeremy also won the NB 1400v6 and a $100 gift certificate.
We’re Going to Have a Diamond League Finals Contest
Thanks to everyone who played our contests this summer. We’re going to have a contest for the Diamond League finals (August 30-31), so stay tuned.
Thanks to Running Warehouse for sponsoring all of our contests. If you want free two-day shipping and free return shipping from people who know running shoes, they are your one-stop shop.
