South Hadley, Mass. - November 8, 2021 - The Mount Holyoke College swimming and diving team will be participating in the 16th Annual Hour of Power Relay on Tuesday, November 9. First held on November 7, 2006, the Ted Mullin "Hour of Power" Relay has grown from 15 teams in its first year to 170 teams with more than 7,100 student-athletes in 2019-20. Over the past 15 years, participants in the "Hour of Power" Relay have raised over $925,000 for the Ted Mullin Fund for Pediatric Sarcoma Research at the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children's Hospital.

"We are thrilled to be a part of the Ted Mullin "Hour of Power" Relay once again this season," said head coach Dave Allen. "We have all been affected by a family member or friend having cancer, so this has been and will continue to be a great event to raise awareness and money for pediatric sarcoma research. The event involves high school, college and masters teams from all over the country and the world, swimming at the same time, so even though we are in our own pool, there is a connection with the other teams involved."

On November 9, college, high school, club or masters swimming and diving teams will partake in the "Hour of Power" Relay in honor of Carleton College swimmer Ted Mullin, who died in the fall of 2006 from sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer. Funds raised through this event support research at the University of Chicago Medicine into the causes and treatment of sarcoma in young people. The annual "Leave it in the Pool" event features an "hour-of-power" relay practice. The set is one of the Carleton College Knights' favorites, and the team felt it would be an appropriate memorial to Ted to run a "Leave it in the Pool" practice consisting of continuous relays—any stroke, all-out swimming—for an hour, with the objective of keeping all lanes in each pool on the same length.

Format

The "Hour of Power" swim practice is a dynamic 60-minute relay training session that requires all-out efforts from all participating team members. It is a challenging workout that fuels both team spirit and team energy.
 
The set up for the "Hour of Power" is as follows: team members are equally divided among the number of lanes to be used. For 6 or 8 lane facilities it is ideal to use every lane. It is also a good idea to have a minimum of 5-6 team members per lane for each relay. All relay swims are completed in 50-yard segments.
 
There are three primary objectives that must be met throughout the entire "Hour of Power" workout:

• Each swim must be done with an all-out effort - "leave it in the pool".
• At any given time, all the relays need to be on the same length or at least on the same 50 segment. Any stroke may be used and team members may need to shift from one relay lane to another to help maintain the same length/50 segment objective. This objective requires constant communication and teamwork.
• Perhaps most important objective - for high levels of performance to occur throughout this hour, equally high levels of enthusiastic encouragement must be evident at every possible moment. In other words, having significant amounts of cheering and expressive levels of excitement from all team members and coaches is inherently required.

More information

Learn more about the Ted Mullin Fund and the "Hour of Power" Relay here.