Princeton University Athletics
Back On Track
October 09, 2003 | Women's Cross Country
Oct. 9, 2003
They're called Ferocious Flap Jacks, another product of the perpetual motion that is Emily Kroshus. They're upscale powdered pancakes, and you can order yours by e-mailing ferociousflapjacks@yahoo.com.
For the record, Emily Kroshus, the owner, inventor, production manager and any other arm of the company, recommends the apricot and milk chocolate with stone mill flax in a whole-wheat batter.
She's a sprinter when she talks, ideas and thoughts flying one after the other at full speed that let you know immediately that this person is pretty unique.
It's as a distance runner that she makes her greatest impact, one that has seen her lift an entire program through her words, her deeds and, mostly, her attitude.
"She's an amazing woman," says her coach, Peter Farrell, himself as insightful an individual as any member of the Princeton coaching staff. "Emily gives instant credibility to the team. Emily lends a sense of seriousness to her training and competing that has galvanized the rest of the group around her and her sense of purpose." Kroshus is one of the most highly recruited athletes Farrell has had at Princeton. After being slowed by injuries and illnesses her first two years, Kroshus took a huge step forward last year as a junior and now is poised to have a fantastic senior year.
There's more to it than that, however. Cross country and track, especially distance running, can be a lonely business, mile after mile after mile. Kroshus has turned this cross country season into a complete team effort, and those around her have responded to her example.
"Though she has been to the NCAAs several times, it's apparent to me that she dreams of taking Princeton's team to the NCAAs," says Farrell, the only women's track and cross country coach Princeton has ever had. "Physically, I've coached few people with the attributes of this young lady. Nobody works harder than Emily."
Kroshus won her first three starts of the season, including the Iona Meet of Champions and the H-Y-P meet last weekend. With her as its leader, the Princeton women's cross country team has jumped to the verge of the national Top 25 and has emerged as a legitimate threat to Columbia in the Heptagonal meet Oct. 31 and to earn a spot in the NCAA championships.
"The attitude of this team has changed," says Kroshus. "It's much more competitive. I try to make sure that every day, nobody is working any harder tan I am. I try to lead by example. We're ranked ahead of schools like Duke, Virginia and Boston College. It's a totally different attitude here. People are working very hard. We want to qualify for the nationals, and we want to finish in the top 15."
Kroshus grew up in Calgary (some of her earliest memories are of the 1988 Winter Olympics, when she was in kindergarten) and winter temperatures often fell to 30 below in her hometown. She laughs when she thinks of what the average Princetonian considers cold - "it gets to 20 degrees outside, and everybody does their whole workout inside" - but it was in the Canadian cold that helped her develop the discipline to be a top runner.
"It's a city of almost one million people," she says. "It's at the base of the mountains, and there's lots of skiing. People are into the outdoors. You go out to run, and you put on two pairs of tights and track pants over the top and put on a face-warmer and go run."
She played basketball and volleyball in high school in addition to her running, and she competed with much-more-competitive club teams at the same time. As good a high school distance runner as there was in the U.S. or Canada as a senior, she was invited to compete at the U.S. national indoor high school championships, and she promptly won both the mile and the two-mile in a span of 90 minutes. She holds the Canadian under-20 5,000 meter record.
Kroshus wanted to attend college in the United States, and her final choices were Stanford, Duke and Princeton.
"I wanted to go to a top-10 U.S. academic college," she says. "I liked Peter right away. And in high school, I was really running-focused. Running came above every other aspect of my life. I wanted to go someplace where I could have better balance, and I can have that here."
She has been active in almost everything at Princeton, including writing for the Daily Princtonian, teaching disadvantaged children in Trenton and tutoring a Chinese immigrant. And then there's her other passion - entrepreneurial spirit. She is a member of the Entrepreneurs Club, and she also spent the summer in the rudimentary stages of putting Ferocious Flap Jacks into production.
"My brothers must have eaten a ton of pancakes," she says. "I was working at an investment banking company in Calgary, and after work and running, I spent a few hours working on packaging and labeling. It's feasible for me to produce. I don't have to bake it, and it can be stored for a long time. I've had a lot of great ideas [including a low-fat cheesecake], but they all require refrigeration. This is all natural dry ingredients."
An economics major who is doing her thesis on the socio-economic causes of obesity, Kroshus will probably work for a bank or consulting firm but is hoping to get one of her product ideas to hit it big.
In the meantime, there's her senior year to worry about. After being slowed by pneumonia, mono and a stress fracture her first two years, she qualified for the NCAA indoor and outdoor championships last year. This year, she is a legitimate contender for All-America honors in cross country and track. "I'm finally now getting back to where I thought I'd be my freshman year," she says. "I couldn't get any good training in with everything that happened. Running is such a cumulative sport. You get sick and hurt and try to make up for lost time and end up more sick or more hurt. Since then, I've trained hard and intelligently. Hopefully this year, I'll reap the benefits of that."
Odds are good. After all, this one's special.