The ZAP trio of Eric van der Els, Ryan Ford and Dan Schaffer will compete this week in 2 different 5k events. Eric will compete across the Atlantic at the Armagh 5k, a road race in Norther Ireland on Thursday, February 8th. Dan and Ryan will be in Boston for the David Hemery Valentine Invitational where they will contest the 5,000m against a strong field on the indoor track.
The Armagh 5k is run around the mall in the small downtown of Armagh. Attracting a strong international field, the race had 17 athletes run under 14:00 last year with a winning time of 13:37. The ZAP team roots with the race running back to the mid-2000’s, including the 2009 win by David Nightingale. The race consists of 4 3/4 laps round the down square, and is run under the street lights at 8:30pm local time (3:30pm eastern). Results may be available here at the conclusion of the race.
Five time zones away on Saturday evening Ryan and Dan will take aim at 5k personal bests when they line up at the Boston University indoor track. Dan enters the meet coming off a season-opening 3:57 mile win and a 7:52 3,000m 2 weeks ago. Ryan also ran 7:52 in January, a week before taking 10th at the US Cross Country Championships. He clocked his PR at this meet a year ago, running 13:29 to finish 2nd in his section. He will be looking to improve upon that mark this weekend. Despite having run significant personal bests at 1500m and 3000m in the last calendar year, Dan’s 5,000m PR of 13:36 has endured since 2022. He will be looking to change that on Saturday.
Dan and Ryan race at 8:30pm eastern time. The meet will be streamed live on Flotrack (subscription required) and you can follow the live results during and after the race here.