GATE CITY STRIDERS AND NASHUA PAL CRUISERS MERGE TO FORM UNIFIED YEAR-ROUND CLUB

Nashua's two leading youth running organizations, the Nashua Police Athletic League (PAL) Cruisers and the Gate City Striders, announced that they have merged their youth cross country and track and field operations to provide a single youth running club, offering cross country in the fall and track and field in the spring and summer. The new youth club, called the "Nashua PAL/Gate City Striders," will field a single, unified slate of teams in the fall 2011 cross country season after the interscholastic middle school season has ended. Open to boys and girls of all abilities from Nashua and surrounding communities throughout southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts, teams will be formed in all age groups from "Sub-Bantam' (7 and under) to Young Men & Women (17 & 18) to train together and compete in events sanctioned by USA Track & Field (USATF).

Gate City Striders president Michelle Poublon explained, "In some ways, this is a matter of old friends reuniting. Several Gate City youth coaches have coached in the PAL organization, and many PAL coaches and parents are adult members of our running club." PAL Cruisers board chairman Nick Dahl added, "This is definitely a situation where the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. Nashua-area runners supporting each other in training and competition will allow more of them to get the most of of cross country and track and field as they progress toward high school. And in the process, the kids will have more fun!"

Another benefit, noted by PAL Athletic Director Joe Laplante, is that the partnership "will make parents' lives easier. Before, many athletes were required to re-register with USATF, switching their club affiliation each spring and fall, because PAL offered only cross country and the Striders offered spring track and field. With this new, unified club, parents will be saved the headache of continually shifting club affiliations."

The nonprofit, 600+ member Gate City Striders organization is a year-round running club for adults and kids, focused on developing a healthy lifestyle. Its youth program, like Nashua PAL's, utilizes experienced volunteer coaches to prepare participants for the USATF Junior Olympic program. As Poublon noted, "Working with our partners at PAL, our objective will remain the same:
keeping fun at the forefront of our efforts to train young athletes to be the best they can be while educating them about proper stretching, nutrition, and mental preparation."

The Nashua Police Athletic League (“Nashua PAL”), a not-for-profit youth enrichment organization, was founded and incorporated in 1989. PAL's Ash St. Community Center, located in Nashua's downtown “Tree Streets”
neighborhood, was designated as a “Youth Safe Haven” by the Milton S.
Eisenhower Foundation in 2005. The PAL Youth Safe Haven offers daily homework help, a computer lab, library, academic and social enrichment programming, a recreation room, and a fenced-off playground in the inner city. PAL Athletic programs include boxing, middle school street hockey, football and cheerleading, as well as cross country. Over 700 elementary school runners participated PAL's Elemntary School Cross Country program in 2010.

For more information about the new Nashua PAL/Gate City Striders program, including registration, contact Chris Morrow at nashuapaljocord@gmail.com or Michelle Poublon at m.poublon@comcast.net.