As track and field athletes, Alex Harrison and Michelle Howe once dreamed of going to the Olympics, though their dreams began to fade with the passing years.
But this year there is a new dream. Harrison, who is from Edmonds, and Howe, from Arlington, were named to the United States national bobsled team in November. They will board a plane today for Europe, where they will spend the next three months competing on the World Cup circuit.
It is the first leg of a journey that might lead to the Olympics after all.
“Every track athlete dreams of going to the Olympics,” said the 27-year-old Harrison, a 2006 graduate of Edmonds-Woodway High School. “But it’s been pretty far removed from our thoughts for a long time because we both realized we didn’t really have a shot at going to the Games in track and field.”
But with a second chance in bobsled, Harrison says he would be thrilled “just to take part in the Olympics. Obviously if I was going to the Olympics I’d be trying to win a medal. But I’d be ecstatic just to walk in the opening ceremonies.”
Being an Olympian “would be a huge honor,” agreed the 26-year-old Howe, a 2007 graduate of Lakewood High School. “And it would be rewarding to know that all those years of work paid off.”
But there is more. Harrison and Howe not only have their own aspirations, but also for each other. The couple, who met as members of the track and field team at Western Washington University, recently announced their engagement. They plan to be married sometime next fall.
Harrison and Howe were both doing graduate work and coaching track at East Tennessee State University last spring when they learned about tryouts for the U.S. bobsled team. After some preliminary testing and camps, they ended up in Park City, Utah, for two weeks of training after which they were both named to the team.
Though neither one knew much about bobsleds a year ago, “that’s really not uncommon,” said Brian Shimer, a five-time U.S. Olympian and now the head coach of the U.S. team. “I actually grew up in Florida and never saw snow until I was about 18 years old. So that’s pretty normal with our sport.
“What we’re really looking for is athletes with strength and speed,” Shimer said. “And then we try to convert them to be a very explosive push athlete in the sport of bobsled.”
Earlier this month, Harrison and Howe were in Lake Placid, N.Y., for the first World Cup event of the season. Though Howe did not compete (the coaches are still trying out team members in various combinations), Harrison was in the top U.S. four-man bobsled driven by 2010 Olympic gold medalist Steven Holcomb.
As the team was at the starting line preparing for their second run, “I was having trouble getting myself psyched up,” Harrison said. “I was mentally fatigued. But all of a sudden the crowd started chanting, ‘U-S-A, U-S-A …’ And as soon as that happened I was in the zone.
“If it hadn’t have been for that ‘U-S-A’ chant, I probably wouldn’t have pushed as well as I did. It was amazing. It was like a jewel in my athletic career.”
As pushers, the real work for Harrison and Howe lasts maybe six or seven seconds, which is the time it takes team members to get the bobsled up to speed so they can hop in. After that, the pushers are merely along for the ride.
But what a ride it is. Bobsleds are built for speed, not comfort, and the passengers feel every bump as they reach speeds up to 90 mph.
It is, as Harrison explained, “like being on a roller coaster that’s about to fall apart. It can be very violent. And it’s not just scary, it’s actually painful.”
For the duration of a race, Howe said, “it feels like you’re in a very violent car accident. On my first trip I seriously questioned what I was doing with my life. But afterward I was so happy to be alive that I just had to do it again.”
Though Howe has been a bobsledder for only a few weeks, she has already experienced two crashes. Both times she was under her overturned bobsled, sliding down the ice on her back, which felt a little like “hanging upside down beneath a truck and getting dragged along the freeway,” she said.
But despite the perils, “it’s a lot of fun,” she said. “It’s that adrenaline rush where you don’t know what’s going to happen. I like that. … I like pushing something at 100 percent (for a few seconds), and then jumping in, closing your eyes and hoping for the best.”
Though Harrison says their commitment to the U.S. team “is one year at a time,” both he and Howe hope to continue racing for at three more years, which would include the 2108 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
After all, the two of them would still love to realize their Olympic dreams.
“I’ve never really thought about what it would be like to win a medal,” Harrison said. “But I’ve thought about what it would be like competing at the Games and representing my country. It’s the pinnacle of sports, and it’d just be really cool to do something like that for the United States.”
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