Billy Collier: Made of iron

Billy Collier nears the finish line in the 2017 Chattanooga Ironman triathlon. He is known for sporting a Pabst Blue Ribbon T-shirt during competitions.

The now world-famous triathlon consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride and 26.2-mile run, to cover a total of 140.6 miles.

"I wasn't the best, but I was still out there," Collier says about his early racing days.

The 65-year-old systems engineer for Shaw Industries now has 148 triathlons under his belt. Those courses have varied in distance but include 14 events that covered the same distance as an Ironman, and two double-Ironman-distance events. Also called an ultra triathlon, a "double Ironman" comprises a 4.8-mile swim, 224-mile cycle ride and 52.4-mile run, covering a total of 281.2 miles.

It took Collier more than 30 hours to complete those "ultra" courses. Still, he says, "Anybody can achieve what I have if they really want it."

Collier began his racing career in 1976, at age 23. His first event was Atlanta's long-lived Fourth of July Peachtree 10k Road Race. He did it for the free T-shirt, he says, but the experience opened him to possibility.

If he could run 6 miles, he could do 13. If he could do 13 - why not 26?

In the early 1980s, Collier ran his first marathon. In 1988, he competed in his first swim-bike-run event, the Rocky Point Triathlon in Lanette, Alabama, consisting of a 1/3-mile swim, 12-mile cycle and 3.1-mile run.

"I struggled on the swim since I hadn't trained in open water. The bike and run were fun and I finished somewhere in the middle of the pack," he remembers.

But Collier was not discouraged. Over the next two years, he competed in 21 more triathlons across the Southeast, ranging in distances. Then, in 1990, he was invited to compete in Napa, California's Vineman Triathlon - his first 140.6-miler.

An officer of an Atlanta-based triathlon club, Collier had received a postcard from Vineman organizers, inviting him to race for free.

"They were just trying to get people out for it," he says.

This time, he focused more on swimming. Training goals, Collier says, should be treated like business goals.

"You go to work and write down what you want to accomplish that day, then check them off, one by one," he says.

Collier finished his first Ironman-distance event in 13 hours and 41 minutes; again, in the middle of the pack, but, he says, "I was just glad to finish."

Over the next two decades, Collier continued to compete in marathons, ultra marathons, triathlons and, eventually, ultra triathlons. His first attempt to complete a double-Ironman-distance course was the Florida Double Anvil in 2013.

"I started the run at 1 a.m. I had until 7 p.m. the next day to run 52.4 miles. After running 38 miles, I determined that there was no way for me to run 14 miles with four hours left in the race. I hadn't slept since the race started and was sleep deprived. It was a bad decision made when I wasn't thinking clearly," Collier says of his decision to quit.

In 2014, he tried again, alongside just 35 other competitors. In contrast, that same year, Chattanooga's inaugural Ironman saw 2,327 competitors - one of whom was Collier.

To complete the 281.2-mile Florida course, racers had 36 hours. But distance isn't the greatest challenge, Collier says. "It's having to go all night. To stay focused. To keep a stupid song from getting stuck in your head."

Collier says he just focuses on getting to the next aid station.

"I think about what I need to do at the next transition. During the swim, I think about the order I'll put on my clothes, over and over," he says. "An endurance event will test you. It's painful, but you gut it out."

Collier finished the Double Anvil in 34 hours.

For many, an ultra triathlon would be a crowning achievement. For Collier, it was the starting line in a year in which he would cover more than 800 miles.

Billy Collier competes in Wild Trails' 2014 Lookout Mountain 50-miler. He placed first in his 60-and-older age group.

Following that February ultra triathlon, Collier competed in the Chattanooga Mountains Stage Race in June, which featured three consecutive days of trail races: an 18-miler, a 22-miler and a 20-miler. That September, he competed in Chattanooga's inaugural Ironman. Twelve days later, in early October, Collier traveled to Virginia and finished his second double-Ironman-distance event.

"It rained the whole time," he remembers. "I made the cutoff time by 15 minutes."

He ended 2014 with the Lookout Mountain 50-Miler trail race, in which he ranked first in his 60-and-older age group.

Every year since, Collier has competed in the Chattanooga Ironman, though he is currently training for the 2019 Virginia Triple Anvil triathlon - a 7.1-mile swim, 340-mile cycle and 78.7-mile run, to cover a total of 421.8 miles. Racers will have 60 hours to complete the course.

"I do them because they're there. If these races didn't exist, I wouldn't think about them," Collier says.

While it seems that Collier truly is made of iron, he maintains, "I'm an average guy." And, he says, he does have a limit: quintuples - ultra triathlons that cover 703 miles over the course of five days.

"That's just nuts," Collier says. "It can't be done."