Stotan Racing is a professional distance running team based in Syracuse.  Bill and John Aris started the team and have made the goal to achieve excellence.  This is a very open ended goal, however it has no limits.  The team has gained sponsorship through Nike and is able to focus on competing with the best athletes in the country.  The team was intended to train individuals toward individual goals but the team has gravitated toward a team atmosphere in which athletes train together and work toward common goals and help each other to achieve them.  This past May, this became evident when Stotan racing won the Mountain Goat 10 mile team competition which included both men and women as scoring members.  During this race, a group of Stotan men found themselves running together and working together to move up through the field, eventually finishing 3 men in the top 5 finishers.  The women did not disappoint either, Emily Lasala won the race and Stotan had 2 women in the top 3.  Although the team has only existed since January 2010, one member, Laurel Burdick, has already qualified for the 2012 Olympic trials in the marathon.  Laurel ran 2:44 at the Boston Marathon to earn a chance to compete for an Olympic spot on the USA team.  Recently Laurel finished as the top American and 9th overall at the Utica Boilermaker, which is now considered the most competitive 15k race in the world.  On the men's side, Stotan placed 5 men in the top 30 out of over 11,000 finishers.