Lara Crofford and Katie Spratford Joining NE Distance
Guest blog by Nich Haber, NE Distance
Please welcome NE Distance’s two new athlete-in-resident fellows! Lara Crofford and Katie Spratford will be joining us this month.
Lara graduated from University of Nebraska and competed in the 2008 US Olympic Trials 10,000m as a freshman. She comes to us after spending a year as an assistant coach to Steve Spence at Shippensburg in Pennsylvania. Katie is an 8-time All American and was the Shippensburg Female Athlete of the Year last year. Both athletes are looking forward to joining us in Rhode Island and being role models to youth in the Woonsocket community.
A little more on each…
Katrina Spratford joined NE Distance as an 8-time All-American. In 2012 she was the PSAC Women’s Cross-Country Champion, and a year later she was the 2013 Shippensburg Female Athlete of the Year. She has a PR of 9:40for the 3000m Indoors and 34:42 for 10,000m Outdoors. Katie graduated cum laude from Shippensburg in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science. She is excited to continue with her passion of running post-graduation as part of the NE Distance team. When not training, Katie is eager to be a role model for the children of Woonsocket, and to give back to the community she now calls her home.
Lara Crofford is a fall 2013 NE Distance recruit. Joining us as a 2008 Olympic trials qualifier in the 10K and a 10,000 meter 33:56 personal best. Lara was the top American in the 10,000m at the Penn Relays in 2013. Lara is excited to be part of our team. As part of NE Distance, Lara is looking to up her mileage and move towards running longer road races. She is a 2011 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a degree in Nutrition, Health, and Exercise Science. In Nebraska, Lara had a passion for community service, which she hopes to now be able to continue pursuing in the Woonsocket community when she is not training. Lara joins NE Distance after receiving her Masters in Organizational Development and Leadership from Shippensburg University, where she finished up her NCAA collegiate eligibility in the Spring of 2012 as an All-American in the DMR, while working as an assistant coach to Steve Spence for the past year.
Speaking of Steve Spence, he had this to say about his two former runners:
“I’m very excited to have two of my runners moving on to a post collegiate training group. They have contributed much to our programs here at Shippensburg and helped us win many conference championships. In fact, Katie has led us to 9 conference titles (3 x cross country, indoor, outdoor) in a row since transferring from Richmond. Lara competed for us for one track season while in grad school and then served as a coach the next year while finishing her grad degree. Lara and Katie worked well together as training partners and I’m happy that they can continue to help each other develop. They both possess a passion for the sport and a desire to see how fast they can run.”
Both athletes will be coached by NE Distance’s new assistant coach Kurt Benninger (aka Mr. Molly Huddle). They will be focusing on indoor and outdoor seasons in 2014 and do not currently have fall race plans, but we will update you if that changes.
They are due to arrive on Sept 15th when the new apartment from NeighborWorks is completed.

Now that we’ve announced the new athletes, let’s get to the punk rock…
NEW YORK’S ORIGINAL PUNK ROCK HEAVY METAL KARAOKE BAND TO PLAY TWO BENEFIT CONCERTS
New York City’s original Punk Rock Heavy Metal Karaoke band is coming to the Boston area to support this non-profit running organization with two events.
The Punk Rock Heavy Metal Karaoke Band was the original live karaoke band that started at Arlene’s Grocery in New York’s Lower East Side in 1999. The band has a set list of over 300 punk rock, heavy metal, arena rock and new wave songs and members of the audience step up to be their lead singer one song at a time.
Concerts will be:
Saturday, September 21st at 6pm at TT the Bear’s, 10 Brookline Street, Cambridge, MA
Sunday, September 22nd at 2pm at Ri Ra Irish Pub, 50 Exchange Street, Providence, RI (Right after the CVS Downtown 5k)
Audience members will be able to sing on stage with the band. Tickets are available on the NE Distance web site, www.nedistance.org.
Funding for the NE Distance program has come primarily from individuals in the running community. When not training, NE Distance athletes work 16-20 hours per week tutoring, coaching and mentoring local youth in the working class city of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. NE Distance’s athletes are currently working with four separate after-school programs. Anyone interested in supporting this program can purchase “shares” in the team from their web site at www.nedistance.org.
FYI David Goodman will be competing at the CVS Downtown 5k on Sept 22nd (right before the PRHMK band concert).