Home Free
Toni Cook and Sue Forbes do a lot of running away from home and home is a long way away. Cook and Forbes are the top two runners on the women's crosscountry team and both hail from Alaska. Cook, a sophomore, lives in Fairbanks, and Forbes, a freshman, comes from Anchorage. Cook set a course record at Middlebury, covering the three-mile course in 17 minutes and 31 seconds, and Forbes set a course record at Bates, running 3.1 miles in 19 minutes and 25 seconds. Their efforts have helped the Dartmouth women harriers win four meets while losing two "squeakers." In mid-season, the Dartmouth runners beat Harvard in. a "super upset," with Cook finishing second overall.
Cross-country coach Peter Fox Smith has witnessed a "breakthrough" in women's running at Dartmouth this year. "The cross-country program has taken longer to get going," explains Smith, who has been at the College for four years. "We have a good group of athletes this year, and we're under way in cross-country. We're home free as far as women's running is concerned at Dartmouth College." Smith, who also coaches the women's indoor and outdoor track programs, has a no-nonsense approach to running. "Cross-country has got to be the most demanding team sport there is," he says. "It takes an unbelievable amount of training, which has to begin on July 1 to compete seriously in September. The running is grueling and takes an extraordinary type of person. It's the most beautiful and pure of all sports, but also the most demanding. If one of my runners is not making a 100 per cent effort, she has to leave the team."
As a freshman, Cook placed fifth in the 5,000-meter Eastern Regional Championships. "That's the highest running achievement a Dartmouth woman runner has made," points out Smith. The 19-year- old Cook ran a little in high school, but has been running "seriously" for only about a year. "I used to have cross-country training for basketball, but now I don't play basketball — I just run all the time," she says. Cook, who has a double major of art history and economics, entered the Anchorage marathon this summer and completed the 26-mile run in three hours and seven minutes. That time will qualify her for the Boston Marathon in the spring. "It helps a lot if you like running," she observes. "In fact, you have to like it. Cook came to Dartmouth because she liked the East Coast and had a friend at the College.
When teammate Forbes arrived in Hanover, it was more of a family reunion. Her sisters Heather and Becky also are Dartmouth students. The freshman has been running for nine years in conjunction with ski training. "I had a former Olympic skier as a ski coach in elementary school and he got me involved in running," she says. Forbes will be a cross-country skier on the women's team this winter.
Cook and Forbes train for about two and a half hours per day, taking a four- mile "easy run" in the morning and devoting their afternoons to distance, interval training, or speed work. It takes the women up to 15 hours to fly the 3,500 miles back to Alaska for Christmas and summer breaks. When Forbes returns to Anchorage during the winter, she usually skis. As for life in Fairbanks, "I run until it gets to about 20 below," says Cook.
Alaskan runners Cook (above) and Forbes.
