Wife, Olympic icon pushed Rays' Howell in offseason

For years, J.P. Howell heard his girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned-wife Heather talk about Peggy, her friend and workout partner.

Peggy had been a figure skater.

"Cool," J.P. said.

She skated in the Olympics, Heather said.

"That's cool," J.P. said.

Peggy would be Peggy Fleming, who won gold at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France.

"Who?" J.P. asked.

"Dude!" Heather said. "Peggy Fleming!"

"I didn't know who she was," Howell said. "I had no idea she was the face of skating."

Or that Peggy Fleming is a beast in the gym, smiling through workouts this winter that left the Rays relief pitcher gasping for air.

"She's in crazy shape," Howell said.

Howell learned that when the three worked out with Mark Frederick, Fleming's strength and conditioning coach, in Los Gatos, Calif.

"Peggy still has that competitive drive," Heather said. "When she gets started, she doesn't want to stop. I think we all have that trait. It was fun. It was good for J.P. to be around two women and get his butt kicked."

Heather and Fleming lived in Los Gatos. They met when Heather was 16 and the top 800-meter high school runner in the country. The two began training together. The former Olympian pushed Heather toward a track scholarship to the University of Southern California and down the path to the Olympics.

"She's an inspiration," Heather said.

Heather's dream of racing in the Olympics ended in a freak accident when she broke three vertebrae while jumping into a lake after a training run with her USC teammates. The other 39 runners splashed down safely. Heather is thankful she can walk.

With her running career over, it was Fleming who pushed Heather toward a career in broadcasting. After Heather landed a job at Fox Los Angeles, it was Fleming who pushed Heather back into the gym to get back into running shape.

After returning from their honeymoon before Christmas, Heather took her husband to the gym to meet Fleming and Frederick. Heather also pushed J.P. up and down the hilly trails outside Los Gatos, telling her husband it is the ninth inning, two outs and he has to find the strength to get the last out.

"He wasn't used to running like that," Heather said.

Frederick's facility is called "Move It!" And that's what Howell found himself doing once he started working out with his new bride and the 61-year-old Olympic icon.

"She's a lady who can just do it," Howell said. "You're working and she's not. She's enjoying it. I hated it. I was hurting. I like the battle, but we've got a long year ahead of us and this is tough to do, and she's in there enjoying it."

Frederick had Howell on a program that called for two minutes of intense work and a short break to mimic what he does on the mound: throw a baseball, rest, throw a baseball, rest.

Howell called Fleming "one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met."

Also, one of the toughest.

"She had no problems with it," Howell said, "and I was there huffing and puffing."