Music City Triathlon

Background

I’ve done the Music City Triathlon many times over the years. It’s actually the place I first did an Olympic distance race back in 2018. Since then, this event has gotten much more fun with the addition of the General Jackson Showboat.

Living here in Nashville I am admittedly biased, but this is my favorite swim start of any triathlon I’ve ever done. We board the General Jackson, it takes us upstream, then we leap off the side of the boat to swim back to downtown.

That said, I wasn’t planning on racing Music City in 2025. Or so I thought.

Race Week

Monday of race week, I got an email from Magic Sports, the organizers of the Music City Triathlon. That's not out of the ordinary, as I'm on their mailing list and have done literally every event they've put on across the region over the past few years.

But this email was different. It had my bib number for the race on Sunday.

Wait. What?!

Soooo. Funny story.

Whenever I am in ATL for Thanksgiving, I always sign up for the Atlanta Track Club’s half marathon. It’s a fun way to start the day by running under the Olympic rings before heading back to my Mom’s for turkey. But in 2024, because of construction near Georgia State University, the course was a little different…and harder! It was the hilliest half marathon I’ve ever done. It also was somehow the fastest half marathon I’ve ever done.

I cracked sub-1:40 for the first time, finishing in 1:38. When I got back to my Mom’s, I celebrated with turkey, carbs, and hoppy IPAs. I seem to have overconsumed the hops, and with that buzz, I started browsing Black Friday specials for triathlons. I signed up for Music City, never put it in my iPhone calendar, and then completely forgot about the race until I saw that email.

Honestly, there are worse outcomes from having one too many.

This race was certainly not in my training plan. But once I realized I was registered for it, I never considered skipping out. There was a moment of shame when I told Katy about how this unexpected triathlon had come to be, but I was excited to jump off the boat!

Race Morning

It is such a luxury to race in your hometown. Not only do you get to sleep in your own bed, there are race benefits too.

Whenever we travel to an event, there’s the task of packing everything up, going to an Airbnb or a hotel, and then downsizing what you need just for race day into a bag. Since I was at home, I just had to put what I needed into my backpack, pumped my tires in the garage, and set off for Nissan Stadium.

I set up my bike, laid out my gear, and took in the view of our skyline. I'm biased, but this is one of the best transition views you can find anywhere.

Down the hill from transition, the General Jackson was waiting for us to board.

Swim

I like to make my race recaps light-hearted and fun. Unfortunately, I can’t really do that here.

As we set sail upstream, I had no idea what was about to happen. Waiting on the boat, I felt completely fine.

Katy always says she worries most about me during the swim. I try to reassure her that while not a fast swimmer, I'm completely comfortable alone in a large body of water. But it wasn’t always that way; in my first two triathlons, I experienced massive open water panic, though I haven't had any issues in eight years.

Open water panic happened today.

Here’s why and how:

1. Weeks of endless rain in Tennessee had already canceled the Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga swim two weeks earlier. Thankfully, we were still good to go today in Nashville, but the current was RIPPING. It was flowing fast enough that most of the buoys to line the course had been sucked away back towards downtown. During the pre-swim briefing, they told us to use Nashville’s distinctly different bridges instead of buoys to keep track of where we were on the course. That’s…different!

2. The water was cold! 62ºF in June is unheard of. For a swim this short, I wouldn’t normally wear a wetsuit. But I used mine today just to try to dull the chill of that first minute or so. I’m sure it helped, but it was still a chilly plunge as I entered the water.

3. It’s not a high jump from the side of the General Jackson, but it’s enough of a leap that it can dislodge your goggles as you enter the water. In past years, I’ve held them on my face with my hands, but I forgot to this year. When I hit the water, they moved just enough for water to blast inside.

4. As I was quickly emptying and adjusting my goggles back onto my face, something hit my side and right arm. I think it was a branch with some leaves on it. For how fast the current was flowing, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find debris in the water..

Any of those four things on their own is no big deal. And honestly, now that I’ve written them and looked at this list, it sounds kind of pathetic. Those are all nuisances at best, right? But that’s exactly how the monster strikes. If you’ve never had it attack you, it’s hard to describe.

I’ve always viewed open water panic as what happens when you hit an invisible mental threshold. It’s when our brains start screaming.

“OKAY, IT’S TIME TO PANIC. YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING RIVER AND YOU’RE IN DANGER.”

That’s what happened here. Too many things happened too close together and I passed my threshold. All of a sudden, I felt my heart rate begin to race, it got hard to breathe, and it felt like my legs weren’t going to keep me above water much longer. For a moment, it actually felt like I was about to drown and that I was powerless to stop it.

I’ve been in races where the swim is very crowded. One of the reasons this race is great is that we have tons of space between other athletes. But at this moment, it actually added to my panic.

“YOU’RE ALONE, YOU’RE GOING TO DROWN, AND NOBODY WILL EVEN SEE YOU SINK.”

Side tangent: I despise the emotional side of my brain. Almost every single dumb thing I’ve done in my life came from acting on emotion instead of logic. That side of my brain was taking over at that moment. It took me longer than it should have to realize what was happening, but once I understood the Open Water Monster was violently attacking me, I went back to my gameplan from my first couple of triathlons.

You don’t fight through open water panic. You have to pause and let it pass. You might be able to fight through it, but if you can't, things can go downhill really quickly. That’s how people drown. Panic feeds on panic and eventually you can’t fight any longer.

I began treading water. It was still kind of hard to see, but I looked a full 360 degrees around to see where I was in relation to the General Jackson, the lifeguards in kayaks, or the Nashville Police’s boat. If this didn’t subside, I wanted to know my options for who to scream at for help. Taking that moment to check my surroundings allowed the panic to rush over me and pass.

Honestly, the whole moment was probably less than 30 seconds. Even briefly though, it was terrifying to feel unable to keep myself afloat.

I decided to begin swimming at a recovery pace towards downtown. I felt shaken and rattled, but I knew the fastest way out of this river was to get back to Nissan Stadium.

One last hurdle to overcome. Unfortunately, I was about to learn the hard way about how bridges create eddies in fast currents as the water rushes by the support pillars.

I made a mistake by sticking to my usual cadence of sighting every 5 strokes. I didn’t know it at the time, but with this current, I was swimming at a 0:37/100 yd pace! I was going so fast that I nearly swam right into one of the support pillars for the Shelby Street Bridge. When I realized the current was pulling me directly toward the pillar, I swam left and thankfully just missed it.

As I passed the pillar, I was probably only two to three feet from it. Unfortunately, I was close enough that the eddy sucked me several feet underwater. Still rattled, this was another incredibly unpleasant moment, having to now try to swim back up to the surface against the eddy’s current that was dragging me down.

Thankfully, just beyond the Shelby Street Bridge is the end of the swim course where dry land awaits. There was a race photographer snapping pictures as everyone exited the water. The expression on my face as I hit dry land is probably is a better description of how the swim went than all these words I just wrote.

You might think that the swim should have been canceled with the conditions the way they were. I completely disagree. Magic Sports, the organizer, made us very aware of the conditions both the day before and morning of the race. There were volunteers in kayaks along with Nashville’s cops and firefighters up and down the river for support. If anyone was uncomfortable or didn’t want to swim, the option was always there to switch to a duathlon as well. I’m not Monday morning quarterbacking anyone. What happened here is on me and nobody else.

I go through all these details just to illustrate the point that open water panic can happen to anyone, even experienced athletes. I’ve spent so much time in the water over the years. I regularly do open water swims as part of my training plan. I’ve done dozens of triathlons all the way up to the full Ironman distance. Last year, during a trip to the Smoky Mountains, I swam beside Katy’s paddleboard in Lake Santeetlah for more than 2 consecutive hours without any issues.

But yet, open water panic still happened to me here today at Music City.

It’ll eventually happen to everyone.

You don’t beat open water panic by fearing it or hoping to avoid it. You beat it by keeping a calm mind and having a premeditated plan for when it happens.

It took me longer to write about the swim than to actually do the swim. I was out of the water in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

Transition 1

It’s a bit of a run from the river up to the parking lot at Nissan Stadium where our bikes are racked. I was still completely rattled from the swim, so I gave myself permission to take my time getting onto the bike. The rankings clearly show it.

Bike

This is such a fun course. I don’t know how much time, effort, and money it takes to close Ellington Parkway so a bunch of triathletes can ride their bikes up and down it. But I am so grateful we get to do this!

The Titans are in the midst of building a new football stadium next to their current one. Confusingly, both will bear the same name: Nissan Stadium. With all the construction, the road surface around the new Nissan Stadium leaves a lot to be desired as a cyclist. But once you get beyond that, this is a terrific course to really churn out some watts.

Granted this is Tennessee, so there are potholes to keep an eye out for. But Ellington Parkway is a great place for a triathlon. The hills aren’t steep enough to make you hate everything as you pedal away from town. But on the return trip, they’re enough to really get some speed up. It’s a very enjoyable course.

I was four minutes slower this year compared to the last time I did this race. That’s disappointing, but perhaps the drama from the swim took a little bit of juice out of me. Thankfully, my best and favorite discipline awaited next.

Transition 2

I know I say this every time, but T2 is always such a joyful moment in the day for me. I always feel like when I rack the bike, that’s the end of any potential drama.

The run is not easy, but at least you don’t have to worry about things like open water panic or a potential mechanical issue on the bike.

It’s just you and your two feet. Let’s run!

Run

The first time I did this triathlon back in 2018, I remember loathing the run. Now in 2025, I feel the exact opposite. There’s no shade, which sucks, but it’s nearly pancake flat. It’s just two out and backs with an aid station on either side and in the middle.

Honestly, not a lot to say about the run because it was drama free and about exactly what I hoped to turn in. The first lap, my pace was around 7:40/mile and I managed to negative split to about 7:15/mile on the second lap.

Post-Race

The swim was terrifying. But when I crossed the finish line, this race still became my fastest Olympic distance race ever.

Magic Sports is such a great event organizer.

Everything about their triathlons really feels about on par with the quality of what Ironman puts on. More importantly, they had a delicious tent full of BBQ for everyone just beyond the finish line.

The medal for this event was so fun. You can actually pull out one of the drumsticks and play with it.

I am a bit concerned about what might happen to this race in future years as the Titans continue building out new Nissan Stadium. If you look at the renderings of what’s to come, it looks absolutely spectacular for our city. But the parking lot used for transition is eventually going to become a bunch of buildings.

For a while, the plan was for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center to move to this spot. But they announced they planned to go somewhere other than the East Bank. Whatever ends up getting built here, I hope there’s a way to still use the site as transition. This is SUCH a fun and terrific event. A big reason why is this location.

Final Thoughts

Back in 2018, this race was the pinnacle of my entire season. I trained for months to get ready for it. I never could have imagined a scenario where I find out on Monday that I’m racing that weekend. It makes for a funny story that I drank a hoppy beer, signed up for a race, and forgot about it. It arguably doesn’t make me look smart either!

But glass half full: I’ve spent the past three years fortunate to be healthy enough to tackle anything up to a 70.3 on any given weekend. Many training days are harder and longer than an Olympic distance race like this one.

So to get an email that I unexpectedly have a race on Sunday is nothing more than a scheduling question. It was never a question of if I was ready to race. That's really cool. I know it won’t always be this way. Much like the open water monster, Father Time eventually comes for us all.

In spite of whatever happened on the swim, it was another terrific day at my hometown race. I’ll be back.

Unless buzzed Thanksgiving Colin signed up for any other races I’m unaware of, up next is Ironman 70.3 Louisville in August. I can’t wait!