PARK CITY, Utah -- More than a few of the 20 or so folks in this small room at the Utah Olympic Park have thrown out the phrase ''bucket list,'' and the air is charged with the kind of nervous energy that can only come from the giddy sense that we're all about to do something that could kill us, but likely won't.

And if that doesn't spell fun, what does?

We're in the briefing hub for the Comet bobsled ride at the site of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, signing the waivers that say we won't sue the park if we do wind up as sunny-side-ups in a five G-force turn.

But first we must listen to the very serious talk about how we shouldn't ride the Comet if we've ever had kidney, heart, neck or back problems, undergone recent surgery, have high blood pressure or are afraid to have our spleens pushed out through our eyeballs.

OK, that last part is a joke. But you could see some people glancing around with wider eyes after Jon Green, the public programming manager, gave us the orientation talk about our impending activity.

''As it says on your waiver, this is a dangerous activity, and while no one has ever died doing this here, that is a risk,'' he said. ``We've only crashed a bobsled here once, and that was 10 years ago. And everyone got out and walked away from it, but they were pretty bruised.''

Then Green said he guaranteed we'd all be bruised from riding the Comet. Which made sense, because we were about to climb into one of the actual metal bobsleds used in the 2002 Olympics and ride the actual ice-slicked track for just under a mile. We would be going 75 mph. Or more.

We would be wearing helmets, but there are no seat belts in the Comet. The forces of gravity would push on us with five times their usual pressure in the turns.

Fortunately, each four-person team would have a trusty driver/brakeman, who of course would not be braking very much, and in reality would steer us with the express purpose of going faster.

The bobsleds look like metal hot dogs. With the exception of a tiny sliver of cushion on what passes for little seats, there is no padding on the inside, just more metal.

Each bobsledder gets a piece of metal on each side to hang on to for dear life, and the instructions amount to this: In the turns, the G-forces will try to crush you like a puny little girly-girl, which no matter who you are, that's who you are in the face of five Gs.

We are to either push back and try to keep our helmets from whipping around like a bobble-head doll -- potentially knocking out a teammate, which would be very bad if you are sitting behind the driver -- or, if you aren't strong enough, take it like a man.

The driver of my team of three strong, beautiful, not-nervous-at-all women is Landon Phillips, who started racing bobsleds when he was 13. He raced on the America's Cup circuit for nearly three years and also raced for the U.S. Olympic team -- he was, in fact, the youngest to drive a bobsled down the Olympic track at the age of 14. To help counteract the G-forces, he lifts weights for several hours a day.

He is not a girly-girl.

The rest of the people in the orientation room are divided up, and we are told that we are competing against each other for the glory of being the fastest. We don our helmets, which makes it impossible to do anything but wait nervously to be called out to our sled.

And then it's my team's turn.

Because we aren't racing for real, we don't have to push the thing ourselves, thank heavens, and instead walk into the sled and stand until we're told to sit down in turn, clutching our pieces of metal. Then Phillips climbs in directly in front of me, and then someone else pushes it off. Suddenly we are moving very fast, and soon after that, we are moving much, much faster, and my heart is beating really fast, even faster than when I once thought the captain of the football team was going to ask me for the math test answers, and thank God he didn't.

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