Former Tri-Cities, WA athlete lives Summer Olympics dream

Pasco High School graduate Marisa Howard knew she could be an Olympic athlete for a long time.

Turns out she is. But it wasn’t her original vision.

“Honestly, I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast when I was little,” said Howard, whose maiden name is Vander Malle.

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But after 6-8 years of training and missing countless dinners with her family, she started to hate gymnastics.

Howard is mainly driven.

After retiring from gymnastics, she took up running. Last month in Eugene, Howard finished third in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase final at the USA Olympic Track and Field Trials — earning her a spot on the U.S. team for the first time.

She will travel with the rest of the team to Paris for the Summer Olympics, which will take place from July 26 to August 11.

The first round of the women’s 3000-meter steeplechase begins at 1 a.m. Pacific time on August 4. The final is at 12:10 p.m. Pacific time on August 6.

She will miss the opening ceremony – she doesn’t leave until July 28 – but “we will spend five or six days there after my event.”

“We” includes her husband, Jeff Howard, a runner she met and married while in school at Boise State University; and their 2-year-old son, Kai; as well as numerous family members and friends — somewhere between 15 and 20 people in the contingent.

For 31-year-old Howard, it is a dream come true to be an Olympic athlete, ranked 26th in the world for her event.

Making that dream come true

The 5-foot-11 Howard said growing up in the Tri-Cities was ideal.

“I had a great childhood growing up in Pasco,” she said. “We had 30 kids in our neighborhood and we all played games like kick-the-can.”

After changing sports, Howard continued to develop her drive in everything she did.

“I remember my brother and I were doing paper routes for the Tri-City Herald,” Howard said. “My brother quit shortly after we started, and I did it for three years.”

This meant that we had to get up before sunrise every day to deliver the newspapers.

In sports, Howard was involved in cross-country running and running.

Gymnastics may have been a drag for her, she said, “but I became a runner.”

She enjoyed running, whether it was laps on a track, over hills, or along the Pasco side of the Columbia River.

The 2010 Pasco High School graduate still holds the school record in the 3-mile cross-country distance (18 minutes, 27 seconds) and in the 1600 meters (4:58.44) and 3200 meters (10:40.98) in track cycling.

Her talent caught the attention of the track and field coaches at Boise State University and she accepted their offer to become a Bronco.

There, Howard’s coach spoke to her her freshman year and talked to her about her goals.

“He thought I could be a good steeplechaser,” she said. “I was a good 2-miler. I did a little hurdling in high school (McLaughlin). So my first year as a redshirt freshman, I started working on it.”

It wasn’t easy to get started.

Running the 3000 meter steeplechase is not easy. Concentration is required in this event, which has a high hurdle on one side of the track.

Runners running at a very fast pace (5 minutes per mile or faster) must time their steps precisely to jump over the wide hurdle.

Later in the lap, runners jump over a barrier and then into a pool of water up to their ankles before trying to pick up the pace again. The race lasts 7.5 laps.

“My very first race was at Northwest Nazarene (in Nampa, Idaho), and I fell on the first lap on a hurdle. My next race was at Spokane Community College, and I fell on the water hurdle,” Howard said.

But after that things got better.

“I went from a best time of 11 minutes, 13 seconds that year to 9:07 now (at the Trials), she said.

In the meantime, Howard (then Vander Malle) became a four-time Mountain West Conference individual champion, won 11 MWC championship honors and was a three-time NCAA Division I All-American.

“I ran track in college (at Boise State), competed in the NCAA Championships, and it was always in the back of my mind to go to the Olympics,” she said. “In 2014, I qualified for my first U.S. Championships.”

Her Career After Boise State

Howard has had some international success.

She was good enough to compete for the United States in two Pan American Games, in 2019 and 2023.

This also included winning a silver medal at the 2019 Games in Peru.

Although she appreciates those opportunities, they are still not comparable to participating in the Olympic Games.

“I’ve been knocking on the door of the (Olympics) Games since 2019,” Howard said.

Besides racing, Howard and her husband enjoyed a good life in Boise.

After school he became a teacher, she a nurse.

She continued running and cross-training with cycling and swimming, working with her coach, Pat McCurry (who was recently named BSU’s head track coach).

Together, the Howards are also assistant coaches for the Rocky Mountain High School track and field team.

But they don’t get rich.

“We live a very frugal lifestyle,” she said. “We refinanced our house in 2020. And we’ve made some choices in terms of our lifestyle. We love Boise.”

They have lived there for 14 years.

With her running she can earn some money here and there, but it is not much.

“Last year I made $10,000 in prize money or pacing races,” she said. “We were able to write off $17,000.”

In tempo races, the organizers or participants pay Howard a few thousand dollars to keep the pace high at the start of the road race.

Howard isn’t expected to win, “and they’re great training sessions.”

The professional sponsors never came for her.

“I haven’t been offered any sponsorship since 2017,” Howard admitted. “But the Lord has provided and I’ve never felt poor.”

Howard’s agent is currently working on a major sponsorship deal that could close in the coming weeks.

But even without a sponsorship deal, she has continued her incredible drive.

At the Trials in Eugene, she looked to see who was running with her in the steeplechase finals. All the runners who weren’t student athletes had a sponsor.

It didn’t matter.

On the last lap of the race, Howard made a move to take the lead. She held the lead until the end and came in third to qualify for the Olympics.

Her time of 9 minutes, 7.14 seconds was a personal best that was more than 15 seconds faster than anything she had ever run.

“Total disbelief,” Howard told the media after the race. “The Lord is good. I knew I had a big (race) in me. It was just a matter of putting it together.”

Valerie Constien won the race in 9:03.22 and Courtney Wayment came second in 9:06.50.

Education is the key

Howard says the training McCurry gives her is a big key to her success.

“With Eugene, we knew the physical side was there. We just had to address the mental side,” Howard said.

This training consists of one track training and one hill training per week.

There are not many obstacle training courses.

“Maybe two or three times a year. Usually before the first race of the season, just a few hurdles drills.”

Then there is cross training in both swimming and cycling.

It lays the foundation if she ever wants to become a triathlete.

“I saw that Pasco was having an Ironman competition at the end of September and thought about joining, but I’m not sure my coach would want me to,” she said.

That cross-training helped her stay healthy.

“Some of the greats in the past tore their ACLs doing the water jump. Almost every year I was in college I got hurt,” she said. “Somehow I feel great these last few years, like I’m getting those years back.”

Even the year she was pregnant with Kai, in 2022, it had less of an impact on her body. Although she didn’t sit still about it.

“When I was pregnant, I was running 30-40 miles a week until 25 weeks,” Howard said. “When I was 30 weeks, I stopped running and started hiking, because you have to keep moving. My midwife said, ‘Keep moving. Your body is used to it.'”

After these Olympic Games

Howard notes that many female runners are able to continue running well into their 30s, and some even into their 40s.

“My best days are yet to come. My potential is there,” she said.

She sees herself participating in the Olympic Games two more times.

“The 2028 race could still be a steeplechase,” she said. “In 2032 it could be a flat track race because steeplechase can be so damaging to the body.”

One thing is for sure: she is going to Paris full of confidence.

“I know,” she said, “that I can compete at this level.”

Jeff Morrow is a former sports editor for the Tri-City Herald.