A one-hour, all-out, leave-it-in-the-pool practice consisting of continuous relays.

The swimming event—held in each team’s home pool—is a one-hour, all-out, leave-it-in-the-pool practice consisting of continuous relays, using any stroke. The relay fosters teamwork through its objective of keeping all lanes on the same lap. The Carleton teams selected this workout as the Hour of Power Relay’s format because it was one of Ted’s favorite practice sets. 

The Carleton College Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving teams originated the Hour of Power on November 7, 2006, in memory of their teammate Ted Mullin who died earlier that fall from sarcoma. After Ted’s death the Carleton College swimmers and divers wanted to do something significant to remember their teammate as well as raise awareness about sarcoma and funds for sarcoma research. The teams created the Hour of Power event and invited other collegiate swimming and diving teams from Minnesota and New England to take part. In the end 12 colleges, one high school and two club teams participated.

Held annually since 2006, the Hour of Power has grown from the original 15 teams to 165 teams on average (2022 team list). Tens of thousands of athletes have participated over the years in the United States and abroad. In 2012 the Hour of Power expanded to include “dryland” teams in multiple sports.

Over the past 17 years, participants in the Ted Mullin “Leave it in the Pool” Hour of Power Relay have raised more than $1,000,000 for research into rare pediatric cancers.

Thousands of athletes across the country and the world unite in the water, on the court, and on the field in support of the battle against sarcoma.