Marisa Howard doesn't really remember how she came to make the biggest move of her career on June 27 in the women's 3,000 meter steeplechase final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

She would only be guessing. 

"I don't even remember consciously making that decision to make the move, I think," she said recently. 

But looking back, Howard said, she does remember the finish line and the clock. "I felt well within myself," she said. "We knew I was likely in 9:10 shape. But it's a matter of putting it together on that day." 

So maybe sometimes instinct just takes over -- especially in this case, when Howard made a surge to the front on the bell lap of her Olympic Trials 3K steeple final. 

And perhaps that's how Howard, 31, a silver medalist for the U.S. in the 3K steeplechase at the Pan American Games in 2019, finished with the race of her life, qualifying for the Paris Olympics with her personal best time of 9:07.14, a time that now stands as the eighth-best in the world. 

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Her performance marked a 15-second PR from her previous best of 9:22.69.

"My husband and I, we coach high school athletes and we often talk about getting to this flow state in races," Howard said. "You're not even thinking. You're responding. And you're letting your body do what it knows to do. And I think that's what happened in that last lap." 

The finish was also vindication for Howard, a Boise, Idaho resident and mother of a young child, who had been largely unsponsored since 2017. Her first professional deal with Oiselle, a women's apparel brand, started in 2015 and ended two years later. 

The outcome also solidified her hard work, much of which has been done on her own without a long-term, sustained backing from a professional brand. Led by Boise State coach Pat McCurry, who has coached her since 2016, Howard has kept things simple and on track. She trains in Boise, sometimes going up to Bogus Basin at 7,582 feet to get even more elevation. All that work has led to Howard's inclusion on several U.S. teams, though no bigger than this incoming Olympic team.

She's averaged roughly 50 miles a week, along with a handful of cross-training, over the course of her build-up. While she was picked up by TrackSmith just before U.S. Olympic Trials, Howard had realized much earlier that a professional contract would not singularly define her. 

"I'm so much more than a runner," she said. "I think that's what motherhood has taught me. Even aside from motherhood, I find my identity in Christ. In my head, first I'm a Christian, then I'm a wife, and then I'm a mom and then I'm a runner." 

Training in Boise and coaching -- at Rocky Mountain High School in Meridian, Idaho -- alongside her husband, Jeff Howard, who's also a teacher, she figured out some core competencies in life: That you can only control what you can control.

"My husband and I, we coach high school athletes and we often talk about getting to this flow state in races. You're not even thinking. You're responding. And you're letting your body do what it knows to do. And I think that's what happened in that last lap."

Just weeks before the Olympic Trials, and right after a fourth-place finish in the 3K steeple at the Portland Track Festival, she stepped off social media. 

"I know it sounds cliche, but I was reading my Bible more and prayer more and just focusing on the things I could control and not on what other people were doing. I knew I had done the physical work." 

That focus, she said, allowed her to flourish when the biggest race of her life came calling. 

"I think I was so locked in and made a ton of right decisions," she said, "and obviously it paid off." 

Chief among them was that move right after the bell. Howard put herself in the lead, was passed by Valerie Constien soon after, but she held on, in second for much of the last lap before crossing the line in third.  

"I think that made the race for me," she said. "I think that really engaged me that last lap and started to string it out a little bit. Us four started to get away. And so, I think that was the best decision I could have made in that moment. I didn't even remember making that decision. I was just responding."

Howard heads off to Paris on July 28, and from there, she said, her goals are simple.

"That I can glorify the Lord on the biggest stage, in victory or defeat," she said. 

When Are The Paris 2024 Olympic Games?

The Olympics begin on July 26 and end on August 11. The track and field events will begin on Aug. 1. 

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