By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C.— Adding talent to an athletic team is always a good thing and Blowing Rock-based ZAP Endurance was busy over the summer, adding three rising, distance running stars.
It doesn’t hurt that all were collegiate champions.
Eric van der Els
van der Els is a native of Norwalk, Conn., and a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut. At UConn, he won multiple Big East Conference championships, including titles in the outdoor 1500m and indoor 3,000m in 2022. His 3,000m performance set a Big East meet record of 7:52. Eric also scored a personal best for 5,000m of 13:36.2 in the spring, the event he ran at the NCAA meet and led the UConn men’s Distance Medley Relay to a 3rd place performance and school record at the Penn Relays.
van der Els was also the US junior champion and the Pan American junior Champion in 2017 in the 1500.
Ryan Ford
Ford hails from Huntsville, Ala., graduating from the University of Tennessee-Martin where he was the Ohio Valley Conference’s 5,000m Champion before finishing his collegiate career at Iowa State.
Ford played a key role as part of the 2021 Iowa State cross country team that finished runner up at the NCAA Championships. He was an all-Big 12 Conference selection in cross country and on the track in 2022, including personal bests of 28:34 for 10,000m and 13:34 for 5,000, the event in which he qualified to compete in the NCAA Championships.
Dan Schaffer
Schaffer is a 2022 graduate of Binghamton University where he was a 9-time America East Conference champion and qualified for the NCAA Championships final at 5,000m this past spring, earning honorable mention All-American honors.
During his time at Binghamton, Schaffer won conference titles at 1500m, the 4 x 800m relay, the indoor mile, the indoor distance medley relay, and over 8 kilometers in cross country.
Schaffer grew up near Binghamton in Endicott, NY, where his family still resides. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and a Masters in business administration.
In his final year at Binghamton, Scjaffer lowered his personal bests across all distances from the 800m up to 5,000m, including at 1500m: 3:40.98; 1 Mile: 3:57.47; 3,000m: 7:50.05; and at 5.000m: 13:36.
