Four bicycles whizzed around the track at Bill Armstrong Stadium. The stands were nearly empty, but around 100 onlookers hooted and clapped as they leaned against the gray chain link fence to watch.
Riders in multicolored kits warmed up on rollers that kept their bikes suspended in place as they pumped their legs.
“Bib 21, you have been eliminated,” a voice called over the loudspeaker. “Please exit the track at turn 3 and de-chip.”
Heat 14 of Miss N Out on Oct. 7 had started with around 10 riders, but numbers dwindled as the last person to cross the finish line each lap was eliminated. The final three raced for first place.
Only a week and a half ago, senior Liam Collins biked 112 miles in five-and-a-half hours in the searing Chattanooga, Tennessee, sun. Now, bent over his bike in a plum Alpha Kappa Lambda kit, Liam sped into the last lap of the race.
•••
Liam loves to suffer. He embraces it.
When he’s doing something difficult, he said his brain goes silent and into autopilot. He lets his body take over.
After he ran a marathon the summer after his freshman year in 2023, he knew he would race an Ironman. The event takes contestants through 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and a marathon, totaling 140.6 miles.
He wanted to challenge himself, to test his limits, but it didn’t cross his mind to do one so soon until he realized that it would be difficult to train for later in life with a full-time job and a family.
Liam’s dad, Darren Collins, said his son called him in March and told him he wanted to sign up for an Ironman in July.
“This is a pretty big deal,” Darren remembered telling him. “You’re gonna need some time to train.”
Darren told Liam he would cover the fees for an Ironman in Chattanooga. In March, while simultaneously training to compete for Alpha Kappa Lambda in the 2025 Little 500, Liam signed up for a full Ironman. Two days after the race, Liam started training for the Ironman.
Its sign-up fees reached $950.
“These are wealthy people who do these things,” Darren said. “They have $20,000 bikes, they have trainers, they have tri suits, fancy shoes, fancy gear.”
Liam used his $3,000 bike that he bought in his senior year of high school. He didn’t have a coach and built his own training plan. His girlfriend of two years, IU senior Tori Donato, said he found all his training online.
“He watched a bunch of videos,” Donato said. “He made all of his own plans, all of his nutrition plans. He had no coaching besides his own knowledge.”
Over 40% of athletes in full and half Ironmans hire a coach or use a training plan, according to the Ironman website. The sweet spot for training is around nine months, but varies depending on experience.
Liam trained for six months. He did so while interning in Atlanta over the summer, working 40 hours a week at SK Commercial Realty — a commercial real estate company.
“I’d be up at the ass-crack of dawn, early, get one workout and go to work,” Liam said. “Come back at four and then get another workout in.”
He’d run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the morning before the summer heat set in. He would swim Tuesday and Thursday mornings and bike in the afternoons, plus lift weights twice a week. On Saturdays, he woke up around 6 a.m. for more than 80 miles of biking. He exercised for around three hours, six days a week.
Liam and his dad spent the summer in Atlanta together — just the two of them. Darren cooked for Liam, catering to his dietary needs for carb and protein-heavy meals to support his training.
Donato said watching Liam prepare to compete motivated her, making her eventually want to do an Ironman herself. She’s also a Little 500 rider, so they would sometimes train together on the bike.
“If he was having a bad day, I’d like, try to play a playlist on a ride, or make a joke,” Donato said. “It was certainly inspiring to watch someone deal with so many things, new priorities, and just get work done every day.”
The first five or six weeks of training, Liam said, were the most difficult. His body wasn’t accustomed to the training and stress because he had never pushed it so hard and long before. After around two months, he got into a rhythm and everything clicked.
Since he swam in high school and for the IU club swimming team during his freshman and sophomore years — and trained for the Little 500 — Liam’s goal for the Ironman was to finish in under 11 hours. The average Ironman finish time for Liam’s age group is around 12 and a half hours.
Donato joined Liam and his parents in Chattanooga to support him during the race. The day before the race, Donato and Liam went to Rembrandt’s Coffee House. Liam ordered a hot cappuccino and a chocolate croissant. Donato chose an iced vanilla latte and an almond cookie. Going to coffee shops is what they do when they’re stressed, Donato said. Liam said it keeps him level-headed and gives him a sense of normalcy.
The couple walked part of the course and the transition areas. Donato made sure he had food every second of the day to carb load. She hung balloons in Liam’s room with pictures she took of him biking, running or photos she thought were silly. They were little snapshots that Donato used to try and remind Liam of all the progress that he had made. She wrote him a letter about how proud she was of him.
“It was like, ‘This is how I see you training,’” Donato said. “’You work so hard and you don’t see yourself this way. But I want you to see yourself this way.’”
•••
On the morning of Sept. 28, Liam and his family woke up at 4:30 a.m. He ate four eggs, two pieces of toast and drank a black cold brew coffee. Darren played Eminem’s “Without Me” on the car ride to the race.
Liam got to the transition point — a parking lot corralled into three different sections — to check in his bike. He then took a shuttle two and a half miles up the Tennessee River. He put his gray-and-red Indiana hoodie, shoes and socks in a bag, which was returned to the central common area for his next transition.
There was a tracker around his ankle that connected to a mobile app Liam’s family could use to see where he was on the track. Liam’s 85-year-old grandmother, whom he calls “Nana,” downloaded the app on her iPad. His family was watching his progress from all over the country. His brother and brother’s girlfriend watched from New York City, his cousin in Texas and his uncle in Kansas.
Liam used an elastic band to stretch before the race and stay loose. Donato said she stepped back before the race to let Darren give him a pep talk.
“It was kind of like, ‘You got this, let’s fucking go!’” Liam recalled Darren saying.
Liam said Darren helped him the most out of anyone to prepare for the Ironman.
“I just know there was a little moment there, because they had a hug,” Donato said. “And they don’t hug a lot.”
Then, it was just Liam, his pink swim cap and his goggles against 2.4 miles of open water. He was at the front of the start line, barefoot on a wobbly dock. Every three seconds, four people on the dock jumped into the water. Liam felt the dock shake every time. “The water was the perfect temperature, Liam said: 76 degrees.”
The beep sounded, and Liam jumped in. He said he blacked out and his body took over as he was just trying to get through each segment of the race. He could look up and see the bridges overhead and the required turns.
He transitioned from the swim to the bike in six minutes. Liam raced loops on US-27. He counted the laps he had left on the bike. The bike course consisted of over 4,000 feet of elevation gain.
After a 46-minute swim and a five-and-a-half-hour bike ride, only a marathon separated Liam from the finish line.
Darren was concerned about Liam finishing, but he saw him during the transition.
“We saw him on the bike, ‘Dude, he's ripping it up on the road,’” Darren said. “And then was like, ‘Can he do the run?’”
For Liam, the run was the most daunting part. It’s what the race would come down to.
Liam's skin was blistered and reddened from the unrelenting sun. Salt, leftover from dried sweat, crusted the underarms of his black and gray tri-suit. He didn’t carry headphones, his phone or a water bottle.
Liam dismounted his bike — a road bike with aero handlebars that he uses to train for the Little 500 — and traded it for his run bag. He changed into his Nike Alpha Fly 3 running shoes, switched out his socks and grabbed his navy hat. The front of it, printed proudly in white-and-red lettering, read “Ironman.”
He still had 26.2 miles to run.
•••
Aid stations were scattered about every mile and a half along the course. Liam got his energy from gels, electrolytes, protein drinks and four granola bars. He put ice from the aid stations in his hat to stay cool.
The last few miles were brutal in the 85-degree heat. Darren said some marathoners called the marathon a 20-mile warmup and a six-mile race.
Liam knew on the bike that he would reach his goal of finishing in under 11 hours if he didn’t lag behind during the marathon. By the first loop Liam ran, Darren was sure his son would finish. The tracker told the story.
“I was like, ‘Look, he’s got this thing,’” Darren said. “‘I think this is pretty much in the bag.’”
At 10 hours, 40 minutes and six seconds, Liam crossed the finish line fourth of 48 in the 18-24 age group and 162nd overall out of over 1500 competitors.
“The first thing I asked, like ‘Where can I sit?’” he said. “Then I walked out, and then laid on the grass, and you could see the sweat and shit all over me. Kind of gross.”
He stayed on the ground for around five minutes. When he finally got up, his mom was worried about him collapsing. She held onto him to make sure he didn’t fall.
Darren said despite Liam being unable to walk, he looked happy. He hobbled back to the car.
Liam got a greasy burger with bacon, tomato and pickles after the race with his family and Donato at the Tremont Tavern in Chattanooga. He slept for eight hours, but sunburn made it difficult for him to sleep. He had to stay in one position. In the days after, his legs were so sore he had to skateboard and take the bus to class.
“I knew I would finish,” Liam said. “No doubt.”
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