Saturday November 14th saw 3 ZAP Resident asthletes in action at the HCA Virginia 8k in Richmond. In the women's race first year resident athlete Alissa McKaig finished 3rd in a time of 27:33. She was followed by Jess Minty who was 4th in 27:59. In the men's race 2nd year resident athlete Nate Peck was 9th in a personal best time of 23:44. All will return to action on Thanksgiving day with Minty and McKaig headed to the Manchester (CT) Road Race and Peck headed to the Silicon Valley 5k in San Jose.

 ZAP would like to congratulate the following college teams who qualified for the NCAA Championship XC Meet - all of the following teams did their preseason camp at ZAP in 2010. Ohio State University Qualified out of the Midwest with senior Jeff See winning the overall individual title. In the Southern States both thye Duke Women and the N.C. State Men qualified for the Championships as did the Florida State University men's and Women's Teams. We wish them all well at the Championship on Monday 11/23 at Indiana State University

David Jankowski ran his first track race as a ZAP Fitness resident athlete on Halloween evening and came away with both a win and a sizable personal best. Competing under moonlit skies on the campus of IUPUI in Indianapolis, Jankowski and 5 other athletes took part in the 3rd annual American Miler Series 10,000m hosted by the Indiana Invaders and coach Greg Harger. Fellow ZAP resident athlete Dave Nightingale served as the official pacemaker for the event. After an early 2,000m by local Indiana Invaders runners, Nightingale took over and brought the field through the 5k mark in 14:17.8. After cruising through 4 miles (6400m) in 18:16 Nightingale stepped off the track at 6600m and Jankowski was on his own for the remainder of the race. Jankowski's final 5,000m was 14:09.5 for a finishing time of 28:27.4, a personal best by 24 seconds. The performance is the 13th fastest by an American in 2009. Hanson's / Brooks athlete Christian Wagner was 2nd in 29:10.

Alter-G, a Palo Alto, CA based treadmill company, has installed one of their state of the art anti gravity machines at the ZAP Fitness Center. The treadmill allows athletes to train in environments lower than full body weight (down to 20% of body weight) and enables athletes to add to their training with a decreased risk of injury. "This machine will be an extremely valuable tool for our elite athlete team," said Elite Athlete Coach Pete Rea. "We have seen the benefits of athletes such as Galen Rupp, Shalane Flanagan and Dathan Ritzenhein who own these machines. This will give us yet another tool not only for injury rehabilitation but volume supplementation."

October 6th-8th ZAP Fitness welcomed influential members of the distance running community to Blowing Rock to address our mutual challenges moving toward 2012. Highlighted in those meetings were calls to action from members of the USATF Foundation and USATF CEO Doug Logan who promised to work to end marginilization and protect the interests of emerging elites. "We were impressed with what Doug had to say," said ZAP Foundation Founder Zika Rea. "It really gave us some hope toward 2012 that it won't be business as usual." Presentations ranged from business interests in long distance running to athlete recruitment and developmental opportunities in Europe and beyond.

Attendees for the summit included Jack Wickens of the USATF Foundation, Jim Estes of the LDR Division of USATF, NYRR Elite Athlete Rep. Sam Grotewold, Flynn Sports Management Representative Brad Yewer, McMillan Elite's Greg McMillan, University of North Carolina Coach Peter Watson, Team USA Minnesota's Dennis Barker and Pat Goodwin, Tempo Sports' Ed Torres, Indiana Invaders' Greg Harger, Crazy 8s Road Race Director Hank Brown, Alter-G treadmill representative Jimmy Bean and American Distance Project's Scott Simmons. Brian Metzler of Running Times Magazine covered the event for the press. 

October 3rd kicked off the '09 / '10 competitive year for Team ZAP as rookies David Jankowski and Alissa McKaig both took 3rd place finishes at the Apple Festival 4 Miler in Erwin, TN. Jankowski ran an impressive 18:50 on the hilly East Tennessee course and McKaig crossed the line in 23:57. On Sunday October 11th 2nd year resident athletes Nate Peck and Jessica Minty ran the B.A.A. 1/2 Marathon. Peck finished 7th in a time of 1:06.28 and Minty ran a personal best time of 1:16.37 for 6th place. Allison Grace, who was to run her first marathon at Twin Cities, incurred a kidney infection along with numerous kidney stones forcing her out of the race.

We are sponsoring a unique and exciting race weekend.  Paddling Triathlon, Paddle Races and Trail Races at the Kerr Scott Dam and Reservoir the weekend of Oct 3 and 4.  Check it out at www.darkmtnchallenge.com

 We are enjoying a great summer of running camps and are excited that our last two camps of the season are sold out.  We are getting so many emails about next summer's camp dates we decided to go ahead and start planning for next year.  Check out the camp section of the website for next summer's dates!

On July 11th 3rd year ZAP resident athlete Allison Grace capped off an impressive 2008/2009 campaign by finishing 6th at the Crazy 8's 8 kilometer road race in Kingsport, TN in a time of 27:17. Grace was also the first American finisher. The race capped off a year which saw the 26 year-old run 4 personal best times in the 5,000m, lowering her best from 16:14 to 15:47, a personal best in the 10,000m (33:12) as well as an 8k best of 26:39. Grace also finished top 10 at 3 seperate US National Championships and was named to her 3rd US Ekiden Relay Team in 2009. Grace will now be taking a break before readying herself for her first marathon at the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis / St. Paul on October