Meet the Winners of the Running Warehouse USAs Prediction Contest: Californians Dominated
By LetsRun.com
August 15, 2019
The USA Champs have come and gone and the stars are getting ready for the World Champs at the end of September.
However, the real winners at USAs were the winners of the $200,019 Running Warehouse prediction contest. The prediction contest winners don’t have to keep training for Worlds; they can sit back and start enjoying their prizes, the super-popular HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 6 and Running Warehouse gift certificates. (And remember, RunningWarehouse.com has free two-day shipping on all shoes)
Our Top 3 Are All from California
One of our favorite things on LetsRun.com is highlighting the contest winners at it shows the interesting and diverse community united by running on LetsRun.com. In the past, we’ve had pro runners, legends of the sport, rocket scientists, 13-year-olds, and even ourselves win the contests.
This time our winners span the age spectrum, but the top 3 all share one thing in common: they’re all from California.
Modesto, California High School XC Coach Triumphs
Steve and his son
Our overall winner was Steve Eitelgeorge. Steve is a high school cross country coach in Modesto, where he says years ago he coached the individual state champion in cross country (and runner-up in the mile). Steve competed at Columbia University in NY in the early nineties, which he calls the “dark days” of Columbia running, when running sub-4:10 in the mile was a big deal (now you’ve got to break 4:00).
Steve, in addition to being smart, is modest as he said he won because of luck, “My picks were sheer luck. The only real considerations I had were based on the collegians being fatigued (despite, this, I stuck with Sha’Carri Richardson…) and people having peaked too soon. Again, 99% luck. ”
Steve picked 17 of the 22 individual event winners correctly and the top 3 perfectly in 8 events — well done.
Steve wins a pair of HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 6 and a $100 Running Warehouse gift certificate.
We had three-way tie for 2nd, and instead of going to the tiebreaker and not giving someone a prize, we decided to give all 3 prizes.
23-Year-Old Former D3 Runner Ties for 2nd
Steve in his running prime
Jessica Selby, a former D3 runner at Chapman University in California, who now works in digital marketing, tied for second. She’s been running since she was 12, but since graduating says she’s been watching more races than competing, which helped her in the contest. “As for my strategy, fortunately I had gone out to the Sunset Meet in Azusa so I had a pretty good idea who was fit on the distance side. Plus reading LetsRun everyday and making some last minute changes proved beneficial (like pulling Jenny S out of my 5k picks with 30 minutes to go),” she wrote.
At Chapman, her head coach was the 4th placer at the 1980 Olympics in the long jump.
70+ Year Old Who Has Run Almost Every Day For 46 Years Ties for 2nd
Jim Waters, who is in his late 70s and been running “most days for 46 years now” but emphatically is “not a streaker” tied Jessica for 2nd and gets the HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 6 and a $50 Running Warehouse gift certificate. Jim lives in San Diego now, has a 2:48:41 marathon PR, and calls himself a “slow poke.” He’s also timed probably 900 track meets in his life and continues to keep it up.
Noah
Noah Cochran tied for second on points, but was 4th overall on the second tiebreaker, but we decided to give him a pair of Clifton 6s. Noah says, “I’m a 20 year old runner from Harrison (just outside of Chattanooga) chasing the dream. I race all of the time and run anything from 1 mile on the track to road marathons to 100 miles and beyond on the trails. I just love running. I am currently targeting a 100 mile race in September and a marathon next April. As far as strategy goes I just focused on what the athletes had done recently, not their all time pr’s. Fast pr’s don’t win championships. Running fast at the right time does though!
If you played in the contest and never checked your scores do so here. If you want to see the winners picks click here.
HOKA Clifton 6 -check it out
Remember There is One Place That Stands Out to Buy Your Shoes Online RunningWarehouse.com