When senior Landon Pretre stepped across the finish line in the West Bay Athletic League cross country finals as a freshman, ahead of his brother, Justin (‘23), and the rest of the competition, he knew he would run in college. But he didn’t know where until May 2024, when he committed to run Division I cross country and track at Wake Forest University. He will join his sister Kyra (‘20) and brother as collegiate-level runners. 

Pretre has been running since he was six years old and received most of his training from his mom, who ran DI cross country and track at Harvard University and is a club track coach. “I got into running really early but was never super serious about it. I played a bunch of different sports,” Pretre said.

During COVID-19 though, he honed his focus on running, and since then, Pretre’s biggest challenge has been avoiding and dealing with injuries. “Last season, I was out for a total of six months due to injuries, but with all the injuries I’ve had, I’ve learned how to deal with them, learned how to prevent them and learned how to get back from them,” he said.

It was while Pretre was injured that his running career took a significant and unexpected step forward. In April 2024, a major running watch company called Coros reached out to him to offer a name, image and likeness (NIL) partnership. Pretre emphatically agreed and has been sporting their watches ever since. “I wasn’t really expecting [the partnership offer]. It came out of nowhere, but obviously it’s been really cool,” he said.

And just the next month, he committed to run at Wake Forest. Pretre first got in contact with Wake Forest after running a historic race at the Arcadia Invitational, a prestigious track meet, in April. His time, 8:48:11 in the 3200 meter race, broke the previous Central Coast Section record and prompted Wake Forest to reach out.

Pretre had always wanted to run at Stanford University, but upon his official visit to Wake Forest, he had a change of heart. “During my visit to Wake, I really clicked with the team, I agreed with the coaches’ philosophy, and the weather is pretty similar to the Bay Area,” he said. “Everything there just felt right and I committed a few days after my visit.”