Head for the Mountains of ZAP

The North Carolina training center bridges the gap between the elites and the everyman

In professional sports, the spirit of competition is too often overshadowed by multi-million dollar contracts, trash talking, show boating, and general arrogance. Sure, you see some of the same poor sportsmanship in the running world, but in general, we runners like to think of our sport as pure, grassroots, and down to earth. It is the professional running scene that leads the way in defining the sport’s reputation, and elite training centers like ZAP Fitness represent all that is good in the sport.

ZAP Fitness plays a dual role as both an elite training center and a mountain retreat. What is unique about ZAP is that their elite runners depend on the recreational runners that attend their adult running camps. The ZAP Foundation, a non-profit, receives about half its funding from sponsorships and donations and the other half from the teams and running camps hosted and run by the organization. The ZAP set-up is a stroke of genius, creating a symbiotic relationship between professional runners and “mere mortals.”

A stretching clinic run by massage therapist Robin Rogers at one of the summer adult running camps

Set in the mountains of western North Carolina, with miles upon miles of unpaved trails, the ZAP Fitness Center offers a perfect place for both the professional and recreational runner to train. Former camper and head coach for the women’s lightweight crew team at Princeton, Paul Rassam, describes his first running experience at ZAP by saying, “you feel like the place was built for running. You feel completely removed from all the hustle and bustle of the world.” Over 26 miles of wide carriage trails in Moses Cone Park give locals and visitors the trail running experience of a lifetime.

ZAP offers four and seven day adult running camps where runners run, listen, learn, and run some more. The Elite Athlete Coach/Coordinator, Pete Rea, explains, “the adult running camps are full service. We organize all the lectures, all the transportation to the runs, the speakers, we do videotape gait analysis and there is an educational aspect to every run. It’s sun-up to sun-down of running education.”

Four runners finish a run at the Greenway in Boone, NC, a park used for flat, grassy intervals & form analysis

Naturally, ZAP doesn’t run itself. This is where the resident elite runners come in. They have to work for the funding they receive from the camps. Cooking, cleaning, mowing, and weeding are included in their daily chores to keep the facility in tip-top shape for the campers. In addition, these professional runners play an integral role in motivating the visitors, and vice versa.

Resident elite, Thomas Morgan, says, “we try to mingle with campers. A lot of them are pretty excited to talk to us and trade stories. I think it’s one of the reasons they come. We try to be as available as possible. It’s a cool role reversal. You have these running fans that are excited to watch us compete and we are serving them meals.”

Paul Rassam echoes this point from the perspective of a camper by noting his interest in observing how the elites “took care of themselves, how they ate, how they prepared for workouts, and how they warmed down after workouts.” He goes on to say, “It’s a pretty cool dynamic; you really don’t feel that tension you often feel around Olympic or elite athletes.”