Michael "Smiles" Cunningham bounded, leapt, and grimaced to victory at Saturday's 12th Annual Lt. CJ Miller, USMC Full Ham Triathlon at Potomac Boat Club, edging outr Cornell Lightweight and Jackson-Reed graduate Emmett Patterson and professional ultramarathoner Mike Wardian, who took the second and third place spots, respectively, among the men.

High school athletes reigned on the women’s side: first-place glory was captured by St. John’s College Crew’s Carynn Kahl, followed by Lily Carr of Jackson-Reed Crew and Esther Lee of Whitman Crew.

While many of the top finishers sought to balance the erg, run and and stairs legs of the triathlon to achieve an optimum, Cunningham secured gold by addressing a fourth challenge: this was the first year he didn't get lost on the run.

Cunningham isn't the first member of the PBC Men's Sweep Team to win (teammate Bo Peard was just off the podium, in fourth as well), though to his credit Cunningham raced to honor his Middlebury Alumni Association - as many entrants use the event to celebrate the formative rowing that made them a bit unhinged, not the current memberships that sustain their unhingedness.

The Full Ham started with two members of the PBC Men's Sweep team has grown - for some utterly inexplicable reason -into an event with over 200 participants of all ages. In 2021, the event added a suggested entry fee of a $10 donation to Unity Boat Club (formerly Athletes Without Limits Rowing).

For several years now the Ham has been organized by its other co-originator acting as Director of Hamtivities, with PBC racing committee chair Lauren Schumer acting as the event MC and chief herder of cats on the day of. There is a difference between disorganized (bad, frustrating!) and unorganized (good, dynamic!) and the Full Ham strives to be the latter. Competitors pitch in alongside volunteers to make this event work every year.

Records are kept only as an oral tradition of competitors, the only trophies are firm high-fives, and competitors pitch in and volunteers make this inexplicably growing event work every year.

More smiles touching the star

So, what exactly is the Full Ham?

• What: 10k erg, 10k run, 30 sets of the Exorcist Steps
  
• Where: Potomac Boat Club
• When: Saturday, December 16; five flights of 40-50 participants each at 0620, 0710, 0800, 0850, and 0940
• Who: About 200 current and former PBCers, high school and college and club rowers from the DC area and beyond, friends and friends of friends who heard about it and decided to sign up, and elite marathoner/ultra-marathoner Michael Wardian participating for the second consecutive year
• Why: Well, that part requires a bit of explaining...

What can be said about the Lt. CJ Miller, USMC Full Ham Triathlon that wasn't already said by Mallory - and it was Mallory first, before Hillary - about Everest? Why do it, why subject ourselves to Type 2 (it doesn't have to be fun to be fun) Fun? "Because it's there."

Chalk

No bibs, just chalk and Sharpies. Stairs are counted on the honor system. The only categories of entry are "Full" and "Not Full." Race times are recorded by checking a Casio wristwatch duct-taped to the wall, monitored by PBC Men's Sweep captain Andrew Dellechiaie who spent the day staying warm by dressing like a North Sea wind turbine installer.

Splits and mile paces and stairs times are kept alive only as oral traditions, like a Viking saga. At least three American 10k records have fallen over the years, it is rumored. Winner prizes? Participant medals? Branded gear? Nope, nope, and nope.

We have mapped less of the sea floor than the surface of the moon; what is familiar and accessible doesn't always reveal itself. Proximity can hide mystery, but mystery can also be enhanced by closeness. Rowers always look for the challenging and the painful as the North Star from which to gauge progress, achievement, success, victory. But those aren't always the point. Sometimes being miserable isn't liberating or enriching. Sometimes being miserable is about being miserable. Pride and accomplishment doesn't come from spreadsheets.

The Exorcist Steps

Thus, the Full Ham. Two young men on a cold and rainy winter day in 2011. A challenge issued by the Marine lieutenant - from one purple W (Washington) to another (Williams): "Let's do something really nasty."

What about a 10k erg and a 10k run? Followed by a marathon of 26 sets of the Exorcist Stairs? What if we tacked on four more sets for an even 30 and made it worse for no reason at all?

We thought we knew a set of the Exorcist Stairs was 75 steps up and 75 steps down; we knew nothing about being caught in the maw of ceaseless rounds of steep, unforgiving concrete. We thought the C&O Canal Towpath was a peaceful jog; we knew nothing of its denuded winters of pain. The erg? Well, at least we knew the erg.

We thought we enjoyed training in the wet and in the cold because it made us tough; we didn't know why we thought this. It was always so close, always the obvious assumption - we never interrogated it.

Touch the top and bolt down again... x 30

What if we didn't embrace the wet and the cold because it made us "tougher" - what if we all have a part of us that's a soggy, icy, muddy December day, shoes soaked through, calves and quads burning from ascent and descent and ascent again? What if that part of us needs to be fed not to develop some quality but simply to allow us to survive? What if we didn't care about records, if we didn't award anything more than a passionate high-five? What if history meant nothing and we lived only in the painful present not to grow but to experience the now? What if, over a decade later, people still race the Full Ham, perhaps against their better judgment, for no medal or trophy or engraved plaque recording names for posterity - for no other reason than "because it's there?"

*Note: CJ Miller, a former member of PBC Men's Sweep by way of Gar-Field High School and the University of Washington, contributed to a number of PBC wins including the San Diego Crew Classic. The Full Ham is a fitting tribute to his spirit and attitude. For those who have never met CJ, it's hard to explain... we're just glad he's on our side. We do need to highlight the fact that CJ is very much alive and well and is still serving our country as a major in the Marine Corps. If the Full Ham were a memorial event, we can assure you it would be much, much worse.

Peter Clements (the other purple W who was there when it was written)

The author with ultra runner Mark Wadian