By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — It has been 25 years since Zika Rea and her late husband, Andy Palmer, arrived in Blowing Rock to launch what evolved as ZAP Endurance, originally called ZAP Fitness, a professional running team focused on developing high potential, post-collegiate athletes. According to an email sent by coaches Pete Rea, Zika Rea and Ryan Warrenburg to the organization’s various stakeholders, the team will officially disband on Dec. 31.
According to Pete Rea, the ZAP team’s head coach, the mission has been to find “diamonds in the rough”, primarily post-collegiate star athletes wanting to make the transition to longer distances, especially the marathon.
Reached by telephone, Rea told High Country Sports that it was a difficult, even agonizing decision, but necessary without ongoing corporate sponsorship.
The people of Boone & Blowing Rock have supported our goals and our mission and welcomed each new athlete as one of their own since 2001. We will forever be grateful.
For 14 years, ZAP Endurance was sponsored by Reebok, then by On, a Swiss manufacturer of running shoes. Other revenue to support operations has come from a broad base of donors to the non-profit, as well as profits from running camps for recreational and developmental runners conducted in the High Country from April through November.
“Without corporate sponsorship,” said Pete Rea, “we cannot maintain our level of support and training to our high standards. We kept things going on our own the last couple of years after On didn’t renew its sponsorship, hoping to identify another large, brand-name sponsor, but it didn’t happen. Going it alone is not a financially sustainable model.”
Given the exposure ZAP Endurance has provided for Blowing Rock and Boone to the growing track and field, as well as cross country communities worldwide, the team’s disbanding will have a modest economic impact.
“ZAP Endurance has been a mainstay in the High Country since 2001, and a model for doing things right in and for the community,” said Shane Fox, Blowing Rock town manager, in a phone interview. “It is hard to even estimate the negative impact, economically, in losing their running camps as well as the number of athletes drawn to our town because ZAP has called this home. But ZAP has brought even more than money to the area. They’ve consistently brought positive attention to the region.”
ZAP’s leadership sounded almost wistful in speaking with High Country Sports.
“Zika and I have called the North Carolina High Country home for a quarter century as we trained some of the finest distance runners in America,” said Rea. “We couldn’t have chosen a better community to establish our business. The people of Boone & Blowing Rock have supported our goals and our mission and welcomed each new athlete as one of their own since 2001. We will forever be grateful.”
CURRENT TEAM MEMBERS’ HIGHLIGHTS APLENTY
Over the past 25 years, ZAP Endurance has qualified athletes for the U.S. Olympic Trials, both in the marathon as well as other track distances, 69 times. Ironically, the team’s disbanding comes after arguably its best two years of elite competition.
Amanda Vestri
Amanda Vestri is the reigning USA Track & Field 6K champion, July 12, in Canton, Ohio, where she led from start to finish. At a longer distance, she was No. 3 to cross the finish line this past March in the U.S. Half Marathon Championships. In November, she will make her marathon debut at the historic (and grueling) New York City Marathon.
Vestri’s No. 3 finish the U.S. Half Marathon Championships earned her a spot on the U.S. National team competing later this month in the 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships, to hosted this year in San Diego, Calif., Sept. 26-28.
At the USATF Championships in Eugene, Ore., on July 31, Vestri was in the top three spots for most of the Women’s 10,000 Meters event before finishing No. 8 among the nation’s top long-distance athlete, just 45 seconds behind the winner, Emily Infield.
Vestri also had a podium finish in June, finishing the Peoria, Ill.-hosted Steamboat Classic and the USATF 4-Mile Championships in the No. 2 spot. A week earlier, she finished No. 6 out of almost 10,000 women competing in the Mastercard New York Mini 10K on the streets of Midtown Manhattan and Central Park.
Ryan Ford
Teammate Ryan Ford impressed the marathon world on Nov. 4, 2024, when he had one of history’s best marathon debuts, finishing No. 11 in an elite field. Ford teamed with ZAP coming out of college, aiming to move from middle distances to compete professionally at the longer distances.
In May this year, Ford returned to his hometown of Huntsville, Ala., to win the Cotton Row 10K, just a month after taking three minutes off the ZAP Endurance club record for the marathon, in the 129th running of the Boston Marathon, where he finished No. 10.
In May of 2024, Ford had what Rea described as a “massive” performance in north London, England, in the iconic “Night of 10,000 Meters PBs” event.
Ford, along with ZAP teammate Dan Schaffer, finished No. 1 and No. 3, respectively, in the Men’s Elite 5K at the premier Mt..SAC Relays, in Southern California, in April 2023.
At the 2025 U.S. National Half Marathon Road Racing Championships, Ford finished No. 7 in the event, hosted in Atlanta, in early March. A couple of weeks earlier, Ford was No. 5 in the Armagh International 5k, in Northern Ireland.
Andrew Colley
In Northern Ireland for the Armagh International 5k, ZAP Endurance’s most veteran team member, Andrew Colley, won the event over an elite international field, just three months after he won the prestigious Manchester Road Race in Connecticut, followed by a No. 8 finish in the Houston Marathon, in which he set a ZAP Endurance club record for the 26.2 mile distance. The new club record didn’t last long, as Ford shattered t just three months later, at the Boston Marathon.
On May 4 this year, Colley was the top American at the historic Prague Marathon in The Czech Republic, in finishing No. 5 behind runners from Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan, but well ahead of other athletes from Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Spain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Slovakia, Australia and Kazakhstan, among others.
In 2024, Colley qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials at 10,000 Meters, at one point movingto the front to push the slow pace faster. He eventually finished No. 8, as both he and Ford finished in the top 10, a remarkable club achievement for the nation’s premier pre-Olympics event.
Tristin (Van Ord) Colley
The one-time Appalachian State distance running star (as Tristin Van Ord), Tristin Colley and husband Andrew Colley kept a couple of races this summer “in the family,” so to speak, when the duo won the men’s and women’s divisions of the Winston-Salem hosted Cook Medical Beat the Heat 5k on July 12, then a week later repeated the family sweep at the “Crazy 8s” 8K race, ahead of more than 2,000 runners in Kingsport, Tenn.
In early July, the distaff Colley finished No. 62 overall among the more than 40,000 runners in the Atlanta Journal Constitution Peachtree Road Race, in which husband Andrew finished No. 7.
Colley was No. 19 in the Women’s Division of the 2025 Boston Marathon, No. 16 in the U.S. Women’s Half Marathon Championships, No. 25 in the Mastercard New York Mini 10K, and No. 13 in last November’s women’s division of the TCS New York City Marathon.
In April 2024, she finished No. 12 among women running in the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile race in Washington, D.C.
Josh Izewski
Competing against an international field in early March, Josh Izewski was No. 12 to cross the finish line in the Gate River Run 15K. With a No. 7 finish in the ASICs Gold Coast Marathon in Australia, Izewski was the top American behind six athletes from Japan and ahead of runners from Kenya, Canada, Indonesia, Mongolia, New Zealand and Great Britain, among other countries.
After qualifying to compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials for the marathon in 2024, Izewski finished No. 8, just two minutes behind the eventual winner, Conner Mantz. In January 2024, he qualified for the U.S. Trials with a No. 18 finish in the Houston Half Marathon, his first event after an injury.
Eric Van Der Els
Sidelined by injury most of 2024, Eric Van Der Els came roaring back with a No. 8 finish in the May 3, 2025 U.S. 5K Road Running Championships, in Indianapolis. In June, he was No. 7 in the 5K at the Portland (Ore.) Track Festival, less than 11 seconds behind the winner of the event.
Like Ford, Van Der Els is moving up to compete at longer distances and, on Sept. 1, finished No. 12 in the USATF 20K Road Running Championships in New Haven, Conn.
Dan Schaffer
Dan Schaffer, Van Der Els and Ford all joined the ZAP Endurance team in the fall of 2022 after stellar collegiate careers, mostly at the middle distances, from 1500 meters to 5,000 meters.
Schaffer has arguably been the slowest to move up in distance but has at times sparkled. Just about nine months after joining ZAP, Schaffer finished No. 6 in the 1500 meters at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, Ore., with a blistering 3:39,03, less than three seconds behind the winner, Matt Wisner, and more than two seconds ahead of No. 7, Austin Dalquist, in a star-studded field.
In 2023, Schaffer won the Hokie Invitational 1 Mile Run, indoors, and seven months later was No. 3 in the presitious, Sir Walter Miler men’s elite race, in which he was among the seven athletes to record sub-4-minute times.
According to Rea, Schaffer is aiming for his marathon debut in the New York City Marathon, in early November.
Annmarie Tuxbury
Last autumn, Annmarie Tuxbury won the women’s division of the Eversource Hartford Half Marathon, in Hartford, Conn., while former ZAP teammate and now an assistant coach at M.I.T., Whitney Macon, was No. 3.
A native of New Hartford, Conn., Tuxbury joined ZAP Endurance in late 2022, aiming to make the transition from shorter distances to the marathon. A few months later she won the Wilmington (N.C.) Half Marathon.
Last year, the unselfish Tuxbury served as the “rabbit” for the App State Open women’s 10K race at the new Randy Marion Track & Field Facility, in Boone.
In 2023, Tuxbury was the No. 2 women’s finisher and No. 11 overall in the Wyoming Valley 10-Mile Run from Pittston to Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
More recently, she was No. 3 in the “Crazy 8s” 8K Road race women’s division won by teammate Tristin Colley.
A Poignant Moment and Memory
There are many other highlights of ZAP Endurance’s impact on professional distance running, but one that stands out for High Country Sports and sister publication, Blowing Rock News, was having six team members qualify for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles.
ZAP team member Tyler Pennel just missed qualifying for the Olympic team, finishing No. 5. Even in mid-January, the Southern California temperatures can push 80 degrees Fahrenheit on a sunny day, and that was the case in 2016. From the start, it was a slow pace with almost 50 athletes in the lead pack. At Mile 13, Pennel broke from the lead pack, pushing the pace and at one point leading the pack by almost a full minute. He led the race for the next six miles until overtaken by eventual winner Galen Rupp.
In the post-race press conference, No. 2 finisher Meb Keflezighi said, in an answer from a question from Blowing Rock News. It was a soundbite that went viral around the world: “Tyler made the race.”
Now retired from professional racing, Pennel had a distinguished career with ZAP, including finishing No. 1 in his marathon debut at the 2014 Twin Cities Marathon. He also earned a spot in the 2014 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, where he finished No. 33. In his first race back from an early 2016 injury, he finished No. 8 in the New York City Marathon. In 2018, Pennel placed No. 4 in the Boston Marathon, the second American.
Neither the current ZAP athletes, the Reas, nor assistant head coach Warrenburg have announced their plans for after Dec. 31.
