Meet the Winners of the $2021 Chicago/Boston Marathon Prediction Contest
By LetsRun.com
October 26, 2021
Covid-19 may have wreaked havoc on the marathon calendar, but one positive was it made for an incredible weekend of marathoning a few weeks ago with Chicago on Sunday and Boston on Monday.
To celebrate we had $200,021 Marathon Prediction Contest and it’s time to tell you who the big winners were.
The winners get the On shoe of their choice, a LetsRun.com Supporters Club membership, and the LetsRun.com shirt of their choice.
Winner is an Engineer and Marathon Champion
Paul winning the 2019 Kiawah Marathon (someone tell them to turn the tape around)
The overall winner was Paul Malek. Paul’s 30, married, and a production engineer at a chemical company in Charleston, SC. He’s obviously super smart as he won our contest, but he also went to RPI where he ran cross country and track “right before they got really good.” He deserves credit for inspiring the team. Paul’s collegiate claim to fame was “dominant back-to-back RPI pizza 2-mile wins.”
Paul went out for the track team after getting cut from the baseball team, and started out as a thrower. He’s come a long way.
Paul first discovered LetsRun when he was trying to learn more about professional running in 2012 heading into the Olympics. Covid has curtailed his racing a little bit, but he hopes to be back in the winner’s circle soon (that’s a pic of him winning the Kiawah Marathon). He already is back on top in our contest where he picked 3 of the 4 individual winners at Boston and Chicago.
Runner-up is Analyst for Pro Football Focus
Jarad Evans
Our runner-up is Jarad Evans who is 31 and lives in Denver, but is originally from the great state of Connecticut (where Wejo lives now).
Jarad is a former high-school sprinter (400m) turned distance runner who does a lot of hobby-jogging in Denver these days, hitting the trails, but still throws in the occasional 400m repeat. Jarad also is super smart and analytical as he’s an NFL analyst for Pro Football Focus. (Follow him here @PFF_Jarad).
As for picking strategy he read Jon Gault’s preview and then figured if he was going to win he’d have to pick a few upsets. He too picked 3 of the 4 individual winners.
66 Year Old Retiree is 3rd Place
Gary Camp
Gary Camp is a running lifer. He’s now 66 and retired but has been a runner for 50 years. He did the high school-college-hobby jogger running transition and competed in master’s track in his 50s. In addition to LetsRun he reads Track and Field News and whatever running websites he can find on the internet.