Publix Riverbluff Triathlon 2024 | Pre-Race Happy Hour

you got to wonder like you got to fly home right right so I get this chair and you got to like you just check the chair you just put a little tag on it you attention Jo you're walking through the airport the next day with your Royal Rumble chair you're listening to the pre-race Happy Hour podcast where race directors Fay Yates and Joe fleor sit down over drinks to discuss this year's race what to expect and swap some fun stories along the way to find your next race visit magic Sports usa.com um we're here to talk about the 2024 Publix River Bluff Triathlon eth annual yeah so what year is this for me Joe is this four years four this is my fourth year year four yeah um so this race has seen a lot of growth over the years and this race this year in particular is um we'll talk about it more but record attendance once again every year um it's keeps growing growing and growing and this year like all of all of our other events is reaching kind of Max participation so we're excited about that yeah I mean we're on a roll and then we talked about this last week or whenever we did this before when was that I don't know what day it is yeah I mean it's a good year 2024 I said someone write it down 2024 is a good year people are back they're excited lots of new people it's so cool how many new people we have a lot um about 15% of our Racers have never done a triathlon before so once again we're bringing a lot of new people to the sport um this year will be likely a record number of brand new triathletes that have raced with us um in the history probably of magic Sports and previously team magic so so exciting I love that so we have we have an elephant in the room yeah I I have a lot of questions I should know a lot of things that I don't know working with you but I have some questions let's talk about what we're drinking first can we do is that okay to talk about that first is that a good intro yeah there's a lot of things to talk about here uh as we encourage you if you're listening to this we encourage you to actually check it out on YouTube because you can actually see what's going on today but um this is the race director happy hour and we do like to partake in adult beverages during these conversations and we've had a lot of great ones and today is no exception today's a little different um as the riverbluff triathlon this year as in previous years we've got a little bit of a theme with this race and just to make it a little something different little fun and this year we're taking it to another level yeah and we're going to add to that with our happy hour here so today we are introducing our beer that we're going to be drinking during this podcast and I thought it would be appropriate as we'll talk more about kind of the theme of this race and how we're tying in with with wrestling um we're introducing our Steve Austin Broken Skull you're drinking the IPA and I'm drinking the logger so you surprisingly had no idea who Steve Austin was for those of you that are listening this is Stone Cold Steve Austin famous WWE wrestler I mean and he it's he's from my era you would think I would have some clue I'm completely clueless on that I'm a little embarrassed let's open our drinks we'll talk more about it as we drink I like to open it right by the microphone because I want people to hear yeah if you're listening you'll this is for Real there we go so this is um from El Segundo Brewery in California Stone Cold Steve atin Broken Skull um has partnered with them and has a delicious IPA I've had their IPA many times it's I think you really enjoy it I love an IPA I've never had the American logger so I'm going to try The American logger Cheers Cheers delicious so for those of you okay who have ever seen Stone Cold Steve Austin yeah I proove um I mean the beer I'm fine with him too I'm sure I I mentioned to you that stone cold is Mount Rushmore of wrestlers um and we can it's a big debate on who's on that Mount Rushmore but I think it's pretty safe to say cold is Mount Rushmore but he is known for beer like he in his wrestling days he would get in the ring he would have people kind of toss them some beers and he would just smash them together and pour them down his face and when you're you know when I was growing up watching wrestling which we'll talk about I still I'll still watch it but back in the Heyday of Stone Cold's era um I was a young teenager entering into high school and this was formidable years for me yeah and seeing this guy out there in the ring smashing beers oh you were loving it I loved it and so did millions of other people of course they did it was huge and it it still is apparently because you're a big fan one of the first things I learned about you Joe when we started working together is what a huge fan of wrestling you are so and the fact that that didn't turn you off on me means a lot to me it I like you're an interesting person you know you bring different things to the table than you're you're just not average triathlete out there just talking Triathlon all the time let's talk about something it's so boring let's bring something else the it was funny the other night I was at a friend's house and she goes Joe you're you're very interesting and I was like what do you mean she goes well like you got you're like the serious like business guy but you also like wrestling it is a contrast for sure it was unexpected all right well we got a lot to talk about with wrestling with this race which we'll touch on um actually let's just touch on it now I mean I have a question let's hear it I mean because we're going to get on to people have some questions they won't answered about the race and what's going on there what's a heel your hat it's a fantastic question yeah um I'm happy to answer back to wrestling um if you watch wrestling you know that there's good guys and bad guys I'm a huge bad guy fan like I love the bad guys in wrestling they're my favorites um so in wrestling terminology the bad guy is called the heel and so I got a hat years ago actually I go to a lot of wrestling events when they come but um WrestleMania was in Dallas a few years ago and I went with a friend and bought this heel hat so I wore the heel hat and I was cheering all the bad guys what's the nice guy CS I'm pretty sure I'd be all for the nice guy you'd be a baby face wow it seems appropriate so um I'm also wearing sporting SummerSlam which I'm not sure this podcast is likely coming out the week of River Bluff um so SummerSlam is taking place this coming Saturday August 3rd so SummerSlam by the time people listen to this might have already come and gone okay but SummerSlam is taking place on Saturday River Bluff always coincides with kind of the SummerSlam schedule so we've kind of adopted this wrestling theme with River Bluff and this year in particular it's kind of right on top of SummerSlam so it's even more exciting to kind of like tie in the SummerSlam theme to it so I'm I'm celebrating SummerSlam today so I think if people go to our website they'll see that we're celebrating it through the shirts they'll be getting the shirt that I'm wearing to day is a variation of that same shirt um just different color and so everybody's going to get a River Bluff shirt that looks like the SummerSlam vintage look yep uh we've got the wrestling championship belts which are in front of us here so those that are watching can see this these are belts that we introduced when I first took over River Bluff we brought these belts to the table um and I invested a lot of money in these belts and luckily they're still around and they have not been lost but these are like legit leather custom wrestling belts no they yeah this is for real I mean these are heavy I mean they're yeah so these are going to our overall winners uh male female Sprint and Olympic distance and they get to hold on to these belts for an entire year yeah but then next year they got to come back and defend their belts just like any good to do let's keep it going I have a quick funny story so you know Taylor and I worked together for a long time and Taylor our D director of operations has has anyone have we even flashed we need a photo of Taylor at least flashed up on this or he's going to be on one of these give oh well I think so okay he was he was known at the Nashville women's Tri as the video guy he's yeah often times is our person on the video so yeah so people have seen him if they don't realize who it is so Taylor and I working together I don't know how we came across maybe on social media that you were giving away these wrestling belts at your race and we were so confused I like why in the world would he be giving away wrestling belts so the question is not why in the world would I the question is why in the world would I not well now we understand the passion behind the wrestling belts it makes a lot more sense but you can imagine us outside looking in it's like what a interesting for triathletes why would they want a wrestling belt but yeah I get it now so I think it was the the final year before covid um knocked us out for a year but in 2019 mhm our overall winners I asked them cuz I was over the top back then as well and I asked them if you could come out to like an entrance music which we've talked about too just for fun like if you had a wrestling entrance music that you came out to yeah what would it be and they told me and I was like well I'm going to have you I'm going to introduce you before the race um as the champion the defending champion and I'm going to give you an entrance music so like Kiron sass had um Beyonce's Girls run this or whatever that song's called like I forget what it's called but um Run the World maybe is what it's called and then um Derek stone at the time was our champion and he came out to um he wanted uh Miley Cyrus he chose Party in the USA nice so anyways they all came out with their belts Before the Race started with some entrance music and it was pretty cool can we bring that back yeah we don't have a defending Champion is there's been a gap here maybe next year let's work on let's let's announce we're going to do that and maybe that'll get them to come back well they they have to come but we're giving them a free registration next year so the winners actually get to come back for free so that's another it for our fast Racers out there if you think you can win come on out because next you get for free and the belt the glory of owning the belt which is my opinion is even more important of course in your opinion free history of course it is um all right so we talked about the shirt yep shirt's got the exact same look as what I'm wearing here it's a red shirt with kind of a Gold River Bluff uh we also have there's other kind of logos for different years of SummerSlam and what it's looked like this is more of your vintage SummerSlam look the more modern SummerSlam look we've incorporated into our race metal which you can see here on our video hopefully um we got a really cool metal and you can see it on our website too a mockup of it as well so we've got a River Bluff metal and then just to like make it as totally ridiculous as possible we've even added SummerSlam or the wrestling concept to our Awards this year we have do you want to I know you're a big John Cena fan well I told you think anyway John Cena yes I know who John Cena is I did not know who Stone Cold Steve Austin was but I do know John Cena John Cena's a little bit more your era maybe I don't know uh yeah so we're doing a towel a sport towel and I yeah it com from you tell the story but yeah it's a sport tow but it has a it has a background guess what about wrestling about wrestl so John Cen is known for coming out and maybe we can like show a video of this he comes out and he always has like a little Sports towel with him when he his music kicks in and everybody knows the music even if you're not music or a wrestling fan and he comes out and he kind of displays his little sport towel that always has a saying never give up is kind of his thing yeah so we've kind of taken that and made it with a little cool Little River Bluff try look to it I got to do I brought me a special towel you'll see why in a second I got to say we got some fun awards for that yeah um all right so we kind of talked about I think we can move on from wrestling now don't you think yeah I we could talk talk all day I could talk all day I know you could talk all day about wrestling um which we might you know incorporate a few more threads um into this but we've got the beer we got the medal we got the championship belts we got the t-shirts we got the award there's lots of things happening this year I think I mentioned I do would like this beer I'm glad yeah so thank the other night if you remember uh usually on Friday nights we text each other right um and it's usually like we do 7 or 8:00 at night yep and we always text each other I don't know if this a good thing or bad thing what are we drinking exactly well we're just being I mean it's a long week and so we disclosure on Friday evening it's it's okay we're having a little drink often times you're sending me pictures of like tequila sodas um seems to be a popular choice which we both like that we have things we have in common but a couple of weeks ago I actually sent you a picture of that IPA beer and you probably had no idea when I sent it to you what but I remember now I remember you sending it yeah okay yeah all right well let's let's talk about this race in particular and some of the fun things we have in store Beyond just the wrestling tie-in um we talked about our first timers yep we have 15% first timers coming but we also have a lot of people coming that have never participated in this particular race yeah yeah for sure yeah you remember those numbers I think it was 33% yeah it's like one out of every three one out of every three people have never done River Bluff they're going to love it let's talk about some of the things we love about the River Bluff site that people that have been there already know this but people that are new 33% of the people don't know and hopefully they're listening it has a great Vibe and part of that Vibe is that it's just it's a these Bluffs so it's it's called River Bluff for a reason the Bluffs you know adjacent to the the river there are just gorgeous it's a perfect backdrop for a race there's a lot of Green Space you know um the post race party um Awards we're going to talk about I mean it's just it's a perfect spot for just chilling it has a really chill Vibe so I think um the clubs love it yeah everybody that comes strong local presence which yep we always have a great local presence but we're also starting to attract those from out of town which is great for races like this that always generally have a great local crowd but word is spreading this is something okay we know Music City an Edie Ferell Music City tribe we've been there we've seen that it's an awesome race what else is there in Nashville and they're starting to learn that River Bluff is another Amazing Race right in Middle Tennessee and it's an easy kick out there I mean it's it's 20 minutes from the heart of Nashville I live in I live in the city and it's a easy easy drive out so for locals and for people that are wanting to enjoy Nashville and also do the race that makes a whole lot of sense you can stay in Nashville yeah um and and race out there and it's it's not a big deal so they can still get that Urban visit that the tourism piece and so have a great we finally have some hotels out there as well we used to not have hotels now we've got some Host Hotel we do we do have a Hampton so this is also the first time this race has ever been um awarded the designation of a state championship race right which is which is cool so state champ let's talk about what that is so state championship races what they basically do I mean they say something about the race itself that there's there's you know Prestige about we've got a race that's solid enough to earn a state championship but what that does is you know all USA Triathlon sanction events qualify the top two in each age division or the top 15% in each age division for the national championships which is a coveted thing for a lot of racers you know there's a lot of our Racers that are new they don't even know what that means and that's fine they're doing this recreationally but there are quite a few people that follow USA TR Line This is a big deal you know to get to USA you know to get to the national championships at state championship races Joe 35% of the people in the age group those 35% deep get a chance to go to Nationals that's significant because it's normally what yeah yeah it's very significant so there's it's a good reason and I think that also can help our traveling and these state championships it's a state championship for Tennessee but someone from Kentucky yeah can win this Tennessee state championship 100% so that adds to some fun it's like you know for the Tennessee people like hey this is Tennessee State Championship let's have little rivalry so um I like that they do that that you don't have to be a resident to win I love that magic Sports has the opportunity to host in every state we're in state championship yeah um we don't take it lightly we understand that you know it's a privilege to be able to host this and we're appreciative of that yeah um can I push pause for a second yeah um not on our podcast but just on on this all this Triathlon talk all this boring Triathlon I can't wait well I forgot like I'm sitting in this chair and I didn't mention it um this isn't our normal kind of office chair I sit in that chair a lot you do um and I want to acknowledge it because I'm very proud of it yeah um so you really need to be watching this podcast so I encourage everybody to check out YouTube and I'm going to stand up hopefully our microphone will work a little bit here what's happened here people is we're moving back to wrestling I just want to remind people that Joe is very passionate about wrestling this would be a thread so I'm sitting in for those of you that are able to watch I'm sitting in a Royal Rumble chair from 2019 it's um so just a quick story on that it's aair why do I have this chair the answer is pretty ridiculous so do you remember in 2019 we went to the USA Triathlon back then I don't think it was called maybe it was called endurance exchange back then I forget what the name was but um we went to that conference in timy Arizona yep I was there MH and um during that same weekend was the Royal Rumble in Phoenix and I was like this is a perfect opportunity I'm going to the Royal Rumble and so I went went to the Royal Rumble and bought really great seats like on the floor near the ring and when you sit on the floor near the ring you sit on this chair you get to take the chair home with you so that's the chair you said you just fold it up and just carry it out of the Arena I'm not sure I've ever asked you how you got that I just assumed you bought it as a souvenir no I would never you would yes you would I would not buy this but I will he would he definitely would but you got to wonder like you got to fly home right right so I got this chair and you got to like you just check the chair you just put a little tag on it you love Jo walking through the airport the next day with your Royal Rumble chair the great thing was there was lots of people walking through the airport with their Royal Rumble chairs oh yeah all just check them yeah um also last thing um this is a picture in the background I got to like give a shout out to my daughter she and I went to SummerSlam in Nashville when they were here in 2022 I think they were so cute she well she always has a great time with you you're you're a great dad Jo you do you do fun stuff with your kids I mean she made it through an entire show who takes how was she then uh that was two and a half year two years ago so she would have been like nine yeah so who takes their nine-year-old daughter to Summer to the yeah wrestling I love it okay all right so back on track okay um let's get back into our Triathlon talk so our schedule this race we haven't really talked about when this race is it's August 11th it's August 11th it's coming up it's coming up um talk a little bit about uh the schedule of event so like on Saturday pack and pick up and then race itself yeah so as mentioned the race side itself if you live in Nashville or you're traveling in and staying in Nashville and coming out it's about a 20 to 25 minute drive out to um the Park River Bluff Park and packet pickup is from 2:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. we also do a bike check-in we have overnight security so you can bring your bike out out get it checked in check things out ask questions attend a pre-race meeting at 3:00 y um we close down shop at 4: MH and um race then everybody goes to do their thing race morning the races start at 7:30 and 8 so we start with the Olympic at 7:30 and then the Sprint follows approximately 8:00 right after the Olympic swimmers get in and out or at least in and arrival time for people will be 5:30 yep right so I believe that's right 5:30 5:45 I can't remember I actually we open our arrival time is 5:30 they transition is open from 6 to 7 that's right transition open 6 to 7 and race start 7:30 okay um for the record we have a lot of races with different start times I just want to say it so it's always we should write this down before we get on here because they're all they're all different but that's accurate okay okay 6 to 7 so on that Saturday you you mentioned we end at 4: Yeah couple things that I just thought about riverbluff Park that same day while we're there has a lot of other activities taking place that might be fun for those coming to get their packet might want to partake in one being there's a Barbecue Cookoff yeah so they've got an event there where they're doing a bunch of barbecue vendors are going to be there right making amazing barbecue and I guess selling that um so you have an opportunity to eat some amazing barbecue at the park and then later that evening if you want to hang out even longer they have um like a free concert they have a concert right there where we normally do packet pickup a Tom Petty tribute band they say and our guy AC told us the head of parks and wreck said they're great yeah I forget the time of that but I'm going to guess I think it's 6 o00 6 I think it's 6 okay fantastic so we were trying to you know like cuz they're set up starts we're trying to get out of their way so 2 to four get out of their way but people could hang out they could enjoy the barbecue if they're not into barbecue there's also per my Aunt Sally so Taylor and I drive together to and from races um and we talk to my Aunt Sally a lot of times when we're on the road and my Aunt Sally told me she lives down in White Bluff Tennessee that they recently came up to and they often come to a place to eat catfish it's across the river I'm across the river yeah I eat there they love it every race for this one they love it they go there for birthdays and such so she highly recommends and you obviously have been there so people should check that out too and she said oh it's just such a pretty spot on the river totally pretty so you see it directly across from our race side it's not just cat Riverview something I forget the name of it I don't remember the name um but yeah it's great it's not terribly I mean you can pretty much get a table so yeah and they have other things other than catfish cuz my Syl knows that I don't eat catfish I was the only child in my entire my family everybody ate catfish except for Fay I'm the only one have you ever seen the video there's a girl I don't know where she lives but she's Southern she's got a real southern accent and I don't know if this is Tik Tok or Instagram but there's some girl that's like a social media star now and she literally just pulls catfish from the bottom of the river and that's like her thing like how does she she like goes down with a mask and pulls it out of the mud on the river she's just in the water and then she'll like be reaching down in the mud I guess and then all of a sudden she just pulls out I don't know why this is now in my algorithm but I see it all the time I don't want to know algorith that alth seems a lot easier than like tossing a line down there and hoping they'll take it I guess I don't know um all right so they've got whiskers though like they can they're huge and they can like hurt you I guess I mean she like is all up in there I grew up with a lot of catfish around me Joe I know all right so race morning one thing I want to point out about race morning which we're excited about we got a special national anthem guest o yes we do we do um so years ago I think it was the very first year I put this race on we had a guy that did the National Anthem with a tuba he was like part of the band we had and it was like this bluegrass band and he did the National Anthem with the tuba and I've always gotten those Racers that participated that year always asking why can't we get the tuba guy back unfortunately the tuba guy passed away a couple years ago so he's no longer a valid reason but we have an amazing staff member that is um heavily involved in music and he's a saxs player yeah and so we were talking to him the other day I was like could you did the national anthem on your Sachs and he was like yeah let's do it so John Earl our resident kind of like he usually cleans up he does a lot of things he's he's our Swiss army knife Swiss army knife we tease him because he usually goes out there and picks up roadkill and stuff he whatever he does whatever we ask him to do he moves porta potties better than anybody he's and he does our race overviews Joe I mean he is a Swiss army knife for sure and here he's going to play so yeah he's going to be out there performing The National Anthem with his saxophone which we're super excited about yeah um so come on be a part of that um other kind of race things that I want to touch on here is the club element of this we talked about um how much clubs enjoy River Bluff M um this race has always had a very strong Club Championship similar to like TR Louisville yeah where our local clubs in particular come out and they really love competing with one another and we get a lot of people from our clubs we got we have a trophy that gets passed down that gets engraved so we're excited about the Club Championship model and being a state championship race they now can designate themselves as state championship Club as well that's right because that's there's three things with the state championship we didn't even talk about that there's the age group state championship there's the club state championship and the high school so if we have high schoolers there there's also Awards for high school athletes at this race from USA Triathlon so working team working triathlete is the defending Champion yeah I think they've won it a couple years in a row so they're trying to to stay on that trophy but oh yeah um there's a lot of other clubs that have a lot of people coming this year so they're try want to take that trophy yeah totally what's great about the Club Championship is because of that a lot of these club members stay for the duration of this event so until the last person finishes and we've got a great uh party so let's touch on that post race talk about the party got some music we've got some great music some familiar music to us which I love Adam MCD he's so good Adam MCD with us twice already this year and a couple times in previous years as well he's a fantastic local singer songwriter yes um and he loves us and we love him and so we've developed a really good partnership with him he's part of our team part of our local team we do feel like he's a part of our team so he's going to be performing post race for us right got some good food mhm and beer from the same group and that is our friend at the ridge we love the ridge we talked about barbecue the ridge is over on Charlotte and they're it's not just a catering place they they have a physical restaurant I mean they they have a spot over off Charlotte it's delicious yep it's delicious and they're great people they're fun great they got a cool little beer truck that's going to be coming out and we're going to be disend everybody that races assuming you're 21 or o over we'll get two free beers um from them so thanks thanks to have them out there um we're going to have a number of vendors that are out there we talked about Publix already obviously the title sponsor we're very appreciative of them yep but we have a number of other vendors that are going to be out there having a great time um but it's a shade area like you're fully covered with trees and shade and that helps the vibe like you can kind of hang out and not be too uncomfortable it does you're right by the river so it's a it's a good party yeah um the park and wreck director who really does an amazing job helping with this race over the years yeah um we we didn't talk about this but AC Anthony is his name we call him AC he um he actually heads up a nonprofit he does called the Quinton Quinton Clark Foundation which is our charity partner for this race which let's touch on real quick AC son um Quinton Clark passed away many a few years ago from uh like kind of drug addiction um terribly sad story but a story that's very familiar with a lot of people he's a high school football player like very active very active um um strapping guy and he dealt with drug addiction and um passed away and so his dad AC started this Foundation has done some amazing stuff um locally in um across chetam County kind of developing this and so we love what he's doing with that AC is a tremendous guy so we're so excited to be partnering with him and we've got a number of donations through our Registration site for our Racers that are um supporting it but then we hope that people just check it out on their own and also support it on their directly through the foundation you know if you're hearing this and when you signed up and you didn't do that donation we encourage you to do it I mean it's a real thing I mean this kid I think had you know you can go read about it you can link to it from our website and get the full story but this is a legitimate you know really positive charity is doing great things for people that need help and trying to catch things before they get to the point where his son did yeah yeah um so there's a lot I mean we could go on for another 30 minutes about we could I mean I mean River Bluff but I think you know I think we've touched on a lot of the high points the course itself is the same as in years past yeah um we've got a nice swim course now we've avoided a lot of the the current issues if we have current we've we're prepared for it and it's if we don't have current it's still a great swim course bike course is a nice fun flat out and back type of a course we no longer have to go over a burm like we did a couple years ago it's a whole another story we can get into this is a great that was a good story beautiful roads and the Run um I encourage everybody actually the last thing we'll talk about here on the course is um if you're if you've never done an Olympic race at River Bluff I encourage people to think about doing the Olympic in years in down the road because the Olympic Run course yeah hits a trail that most people will never see unless you do the Olympic Run course and about half your run is on this trail that is absolutely stunning it's gorgeous um fully shade um right along the river it's fantastic so I encourage people to do the Olympic at this race as much as possible yeah and because it's a late in the year race if you haven't targeted for this year think about it for next year because it's it's worth the it's worth putting that out there it's that that end that trail is worth it and the bike course is flat so you're saving yourself on the bike course this is the perfect the perfect time to go for the Olympic all right to close out SummerSlam is on Saturday the main event most likely is Championship the world championship ship between the champion Cody rhods whose dad you might recognize the name um Dusty rhods the American dream anyways yeah Dusty rhod Cody rhods is the champion he's facing solo seoa who do you have your money on solo seoa is the cousin of Roman Reigns who was the champion which one's the baby face Cody is buff he's the baby face 100% Cody I'm all in I'm all in on solo [Laughter] all right this has been a great happy hour race director overview for River Bluff publ River Bluff Tron y cheers enjoy your Stone Cold Steve Austin's Broken Skull IPA and you like yours I'll enjoy my American logger okay yeah we'll see everybody on August 11th 11th all right see you