Faces of MAC

Few states in the union know rain like Oregon, so it should come as no surprise that MAC has a junior member who can count raindrops like a pro. Meet Owen O’Neill (pictured above), the winner of the 2021 Holiday Counting Contest! His guess of 787 raindrops was off by only five from the correct answer of 792. Pretty impressive considering these “droplets” were colored glass in a cylindrical container made of the same substance.

“I love the rain! Rain is awesome,” O’Neill says of his feelings about the state’s predominant weather. As for how he arrived at his prize-winning guess, the 13-year-old student at West Sylvan Middle School says, “I looked at how much space ten glass beads took up and estimated how many of those would fit in the jar.” He adds that he likes math, but his favorite subjects are language arts, technology, and woodshop.

O’Neill’s family joined MAC in 2021, and his mom, Sarah, says they were motivated partially by the club’s proximity to Lincoln High School, Owen’s eventual destination. Perhaps even more importantly, the family has many friends who are members, and they like the idea of the social aspect, as well as the athletic opportunities.

Owen’s perspective is similar to Sarah’s, although he puts it into his own words: “My favorite part of MAC is hanging out with my friends and the freedom to go all over the club. I like swimming and basketball, and I’m looking forward to trying racquetball.”

He also adds that he hasn’t yet attended the beloved Holiday Open House, only increasing his anticipation for this year’s event, not to mention claiming his countingcontest reward of turning on the lights of the big tree. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like since I’ve never seen it before, but I’m excited to get on stage and it will be a fun thing to do at the club.”

“You are an Ironman.”

On Nov. 21, in Cozumel, Mexico, that phrase was repeated a couple thousand times as participants crossed the finish line. For MAC member Charles Turner, it was a first. What does it take to hear those words? Swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run a 26.2-mile full marathon in less than 17 hours. Previously, Turner says he had never run more than 18 miles, and that wasn’t after riding 112.

He had originally intended to race in Sacramento on Oct. 24, but after a cyclone ripped through the city that day, only leaving floods in its wake, he recalibrated for a month out and got back to preparing. “Given the flip from Sacramento to Cozumel, I didn’t really research the race itself other than knowing it is a flat course with a non-wetsuit ocean swim,” Turner recalls. “What I didn’t research is that it is also hot, humid, and windy enough that full disc wheels are banned from racing. Thunderstorms come and go. During the days before the race, I saw a bit of all of this, but no one could predict what we’d get on race day.”

Race morning queued up the thunderstorms. Mention was made that they were keeping a close eye on lightening, but that it wasn’t currently a factor. Turner was figuring on a 12-hour day. He ended up crossing the finish line 11 hours and 14 minutes after he started.

Along the way, he faced relentlessly fogging goggles, howling rain, pedal-deep puddles, lightning cracking way too close, intense leg cramps, and poorly stocked bathrooms. As Turner puts it, Cozumel said to Sacramento, ‘hold my beer.’”

It got hot, and Turner’s planned 9-minute mile pace ticked up to 11. “I didn’t see that changing, but what I did realize was that most of the people around me also had settled into a run/walk routine,” Turner remembers thinking. “The course was mostly dry except where the manhole covers were presumably pumping rain and raw sewage onto the course. Around the aid stations, there were pools of red Gatorade that looked more like a bloodbath. Twenty percent of all starters would not finish the day.”

But Turner did, despite demoralizing milemarker signs along the three-loop course that constantly told him he wasn’t as far along as he wished. Eleven hours and fourteen minutes from the start, he crossed the finish line to hear those words, “Charles Turner, you are an Ironman.”

The 12-year MAC member says recovery has been lovely. “We left Cozumel the day after for Cancun and spent three days there. The best thing was having had Tri Bike Transport ship the bike. I didn’t have to deal with getting it on [to a] ferry, into a taxi, into a new resort, and onto the plane. While I wasn’t convinced at the time that I would have signed up for another Ironman, Sacramento has been deferred to 2022, so I’ve got a spot at the start line for that.”

Submit information for Faces of MAC to wingedm@themac.com.