First year ZAP athlete Landon Peacock made his professional debut in fine fashion on Thanksgiving morning at the historic Manchester Road Race. In the 75th running of America's most prestigious Thanksgiving Day race Peacock turned in the best finish and fastest time by a ZAP athlete in the history of the event. Peacock ran like anything but a rookie, turning in a second place finish in a blistering time of 21:38 for the 4.748 mile course. Reebok athlete Brian Olinger pulled the group through an aggressive opening mile of 4:18 before Timothy Ritchie lead the group up the hill. Peacock moved to the front near the top of the famous mile long hill before the lead group began the descent.


"I couldn't believe we were 4:18 at the mile, I thought there was no way we were running that fast. And then up the hill I felt really comfortable running at the front of the race," said Peacock. The group passed through the uphill mile in just under 5 minutes and then took the left hand turn to descend the steep backside. Matt Gabrielson, who finished 4th, took up the pace down the hill and opened a bit of a gap on Peacock. "I felt great up the hill, but the downhill really hurt. I got gapped a little bit and really was just trying to hang onto my position at that point. Then once it flattened out at the bottom I got my legs back underneath me and felt really strong." Peacock moved back into the front of the group before Olinger made his decisive move in the third mile. Peacock led the chase pack through the next mile before making the final turn onto Main Street with less than 600m remaining. Peacock pulled away from his pursures, but was unable to reel in Olinger for the win. "I didn't really feel like I put in a big move, but I was able to increase the tempo a bit to get away from the guys I was with. I was gaining on Olinger down the final stretch, but the gap was just too big," said Peacock.

Behind Peacock, also posting a top 10 finish, was fellow ZAP athlete Cameron Bean. Bean turned in great performance, covering the course over 40 seconds faster than he did the year before. "Both Cameron and Landon have had healthy training over the past several months, and that has been the key to them being able to compete at the level they did on Thursday," said ZAP coach Pete Rea.

Second year ZAP athlete Esther Erb also saw action on Thanksgiving morning. She was home in Richmond, VA for the holidays and jumped in the 5k Turkey Trot as part of a workout heading into the Olympic Marathon Trials. Erb, showing her fitness is very good, posted a road 5k personal best running 16:52 before finishing up the day with a fartlek after the race. Erb will be heading down to Tallahassee, FL with the rest of the ZAP athletes on Monday as they enter the final 6 weeks of training before the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston.