We didn’t want a week to go by between the 2009 Western States Endurance Run and the announcement of the winners of the Western States Prediction Contest. That meant a combination of good coding by Mitchell Goodman of the Ultra Good blog and some good old fashioned number crunching by Bryon Powell. As Bryon was manually ringing up the numbers (and to save the embarrassment of some contest participants) we’re only posting the results of those who accumulated 50 or fewer points. (For a refresher on the rules, check out the contest entry page.) Read on to find out who won the contest, what they win, and who did the best at picking the men’s and women’s fields separately. [If you notice an error in our arithmetic, please let us know!]
The Winners
No more waiting… except to thank Montrail and Mountain Hardwear for providing the great prizes for the contest. Without them, the only thing to come out of the contest would be bragging rights! On to the winners!
- John McAlister (16 points) wins a pair of Montrail Mountain Masochist trail shoes, a Mountain Hardwear’s Refueler short models (men) or a MH Pace(r) short or skort model, and Mountain Hardwear mountain performance shirt.
- Evan Cestari (17 points) also wins a pair of Mountain Masochists as well as his choice of a Mountain Hardwear performance bottom noted above.
- Andy Holak (20 points and 2 tie break points) wins a pair of Mountain Masochists and a Montrail hat.
Fortunately, Andy’s tie-break picks of AJW and Anita Ortiz put him ahead of John Medinger (also 20 points, but with less successful masters picks), lest we have to wrestle with the issue of awarding a prize to a WSER board member. That said, it’s pretty cool that Tropical John knows his race so well!
The Overall Contest Field
Below are all 46 individuals who scored 50 or fewer points.
[Trail Goat Note: For the record, I ended up with 53 points – 45 for men and 8 for women with 1 tie-break point.]
Men’s Predictions
No one picked the men’s field better than Jeannie Sullivan, Kevin Sullivan’s (5th place man) wife! Although she picked Jurek and Mackey for first and second, she went on to pick the following men to total a mere 9 points: 3. Koerner (2 pts); 4. Halekas (0 pts), 5. Cooper (14 pts, but not scored as Jeannie had 5 better predictions), 6. Jones-Wilkins (4 pts), 7. Schmitt (0 pts), 8. Sullivan (3 pts). Given the craziness of this year’s men’s race, we’re awfully impressed with Jeanie’s picks.
Women’s Predictions
The women’s race appears to have been much more predictable. So much so that there was a 9-way tie for the best predictions for the women’s field. The following picksters all totaled an incredible 4 points: Steve Itano, Mike Chastain, Craig Thronley, Chris Roman, Greg Bomhoff, Evan Cestari, Amanda Stickel, Suzanne Carrier, and Jon Allen. Way to know your ladies!
Final Words
Thanks to the nearly 200 individuals who took part in the contest. We had a lot of fun bringing the contest to you and hope you had a lot of fun participating. We hope to bring you more fun contests in the future.
