Tri Adventurer Chris Tremonte

Some like to dream of competing against the world’s best while also making a living off their athletic prowess. Some would say that is what Chris Tremonte is doing. He competed as a professional from 2005 to 2012 and now claims to be semi-retired from racing. In his retirement he has opened up GeekFit, a personal training center targeted towards Microsoft employees and leads all-inclusive bike tours through Bicycle Adventures. Chris talks about his multi-sport adventures here.

Slowtwitch: Hi Chris, I’m excited for this chat.

Chris Tremonte: I’m excited to be here. I’ve read Slowtwitch for over ten years, and I believe that this article means that I’ve finally “arrived.”

ST: What sports did you do in high school and college?

Chris: I was the coxswain on my high school rowing team. My freshman year in high school I was probably 4’10” tall and 90 pounds. I got cut from the swim team. I got cut from the basketball team. My dad suggested that I go out for crew, as a coxswain, which was a great fit for me. I was small and I talk a lot! I earned the rowers’ respect by doing all the land training with the team, and by the time I was a senior I was a pretty solid athlete. Then I was a walk-on swimmer at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on distance events. I was able to walk on to the cross country team too but got an overtraining injury in the first month, so I was a swimmer from there on out.

ST: I don’t believe crew is a very common gateway to triathlon. I only know of one rower who turned into a triathlete and he was not the coxswain.

Chris: I know a few bike racers who got their start in rowing, but you’re right, they weren’t coxswains. I must be a late bloomer. I sure got some surprised looks at my ten-year high school reunion – I probably weighed 50% more than people remembered, but at a lean 155 pounds.

ST: What was it about triathlon that led you to success there?

Chris: Triathlon was the first sport that I was ever any good at. I played little league for ten years and I was terrible. I swam in the summer league and was mediocre at best. I was always enthusiastic and I worked hard, but I just wasn’t good. Then in my first triathlon, I finished 9th out of 1000. Finally, here was a sport that I didn’t suck at. Hooray!

But seriously, triathlon is a sport that rewards consistent hard work over many months and years. By the time I raced my first triathlon, I’d been training hard with the rowing and swimming teams for eight years. That’s what makes the sport so addictive – every day you can do something to make yourself better. It is a terrific sport for measurement-oriented people who like to see improvement.

I went to age-group nationals in Shreveport, LA and then age-group worlds in Madeira, Portugal in 2004. Madeira was really eye-opening for me. I went there thinking that I was “kind of a big deal” but then I saw this pro field that was so much faster than anybody in the AG race. Many of the 25-29 guys were planning to go pro after that race, so I started looking into the qualifying criteria and by the end of 2005 I had qualified.

ST: What were you doing professionally at this time?

Chris: After college, I turned down offers from the tech giants to go work for a smaller software company called Trilogy in Austin, TX. That is where I discovered triathlon. Then Trilogy had two layoffs within my first ten months on the job, so I moved to Seattle to work for Microsoft. I thought about going to a hedge fund instead, but figured Microsoft would give me more of an opportunity to train and race.

ST: How was your training going when you were working at Microsoft?

Chris: I had one year of racing under my belt when I moved here. The first time that I raced in Washington I got my first overall win – the Issaquah Sprint Triathlon in June 2004. Then I went to Madeira for age group worlds and started raising my standards and expectations.

Looking back at my training logs, I trained 15hrs/week or 2hrs/day from late 2004 through mid 2010. On my toughest days I would wake up at 6 or 7, do a workout or two, get to work by 9 or 10, maybe run at lunch, do one or two more workouts after work, eat dinner, sleep, repeat. A good portion of my social life was swimming, biking and running.

ST: You must have been skilled at budgeting time and taking time-off from work.

Chris: Yes, I figured out that if you leave on Thursday afternoon and come home on Sunday night then you only need to use 1.5 vacation days per race. I would bring my laptop and work on the airplane, and sometimes I would work a half-day on Friday or Sunday. I recall doing a conference call from a coffee shop in Pacific Grove while Barrett Brandon and Steve Sexton and Brian Fleischmann sat around eating pastries.

In 2008 I did a three-week training camp in Boulder. My boss let me work remotely for 6-hour days, so I was able to spread four vacation days over three weeks. Microsoft tended to be flexible about when or where I worked, as long as the work got done on time.

ST: Just how much of your vacation time was dedicated to multi-sport?

Chris: I don’t think that I took a non-race “vacation” until 2009! My poor girlfriend went to Hawaii with me in 2005 and we spent most of the trip resting up for the race. Worst. Boyfriend. Ever.

ST: What types of races were you doing?

Chris: I focused on the Tri-California Elite Series during my first year, while also trying to get some ITU experience. The Tri-Cal series purse was structured to reward athletes for completing all five races. The pro fields were much more competitive at Wildflower and Alctatraz than at Pacific Grove and Scott Tinley’s Adventures, so the series purse and the smaller races gave younger/newer guys like me a chance to get a paycheck.

ST: Did you have any big plan in mind when you eventually got into ITU?

Chris: My first goal was just to get some points. My friend Dave Messenheimer had tried to make Olympic Trials in 2008, so I decided to shoot for trials in 2012. Looking back, my swim was never quite good enough to make that front pack. In 2010 I think that the fitness was there but I made tactical mistakes in the races. I suppose a guy with my speed/fitness doesn’t have much room for error.

I think I should have traveled to more out-of-the-way races. The US and Canada races tended to be quite competitive. The Europe and Oceana races were even tougher, but there could be some softer races in Asia or in Central or South America. Barrett Brandon would do an Asia trip each year and pick up some points. I went to Seoul once, but developed a sinus infection on the way over. Each year a few Americans would go race in Chile and Argentina in January – La Paz and Vina del Mar – which would let them leapfrog up the list and have a better chance of getting a World Cup start later in the year. I finally made it to Chile last year, but my training wasn’t as serious anymore and it was more of an “adventure” trip.

ST: Wouldn’t it be nice if you could race draft-legal without having to go to South America?

Chris: Totally! We typically get maybe 5 ITU races each year across the USA and Canada. On the bright side, I doubt I would have traveled to Seoul and Nevis and Ishigaki and Santiago and Valparaiso if I weren’t chasing points. To be honest, I also wouldn’t have gone to Bridgeport or Mazatlan or Ixtapa or Coteau-du-Lac or Long Beach or even Kelowna if I weren’t chasing points. But it was fun to look at the calendar each year and figure out where all of these places were and which ones might fit into my race calendar.

The ITU athletes are really fighting an uphill battle financially. Travel costs are high, prize purses are small, and the competition is fierce! How many times have you seen a short-course athlete cross over to long course and just tear it up? Plenty. How often do people move the other way? Uh… I can’t think of anybody. So these guys just live hand-to-mouth for years as they work hard and hope to “make it” one day.

Messy [Dave Messenheimer] got into like two World Cups during his time at the OTC. Both times he got in off the waitlist and had to buy a last-minute plane ticket, and his training wasn’t necessarily going to let him peak that week… and in one of those two races he got a flat tire. So then he was out. “Sorry, you haven’t performed.”

ST: Speaking of adventures, what ventures are you into now?

Chris: I co-own and run a personal training studio called GeekFit and I lead all-inclusive bicycle vacations for Bicycle Adventures. I also dabble in some other things. I’ve been brushing up on my cooking and my cocktail-making skills, I recently got a bartending license, I ran my first marathon last weekend (shout out to Brooks running shoes!!), I’m looking at some freelance software projects, and I’m traveling quite a bit. Basically I’m trying to scratch any of the itches that I didn’t have time for when I was a Microsoftie + Triathlete.

ST: What rides have you been on with Bicycle Adventures?

Chris: So far I have led twelve trips, including the San Juan Islands, the Oregon Coast, Portland Pub N Pedal, Glacier-Jasper-Banff, Northern California Pub N Pedal and Hawaii. I love the Pub N Pedal series because we get to stop at a bunch of microbreweries. Part of my job is to know the food and beer in the region. Life is hard.

Most of our trips have 30-50 miles of riding per day, but we also offer a Classic Plus series (60-70mi/day) and an Epic series (90-100+/day). The Epic series are especially popular with triathletes and bike racers. Last year we did a trip from San Jose to Las Vegas. Everybody rode like 600 miles in five days, then the sixth day was Party Day in Las Vegas. The company gave each guest a $100 bill to gamble with!

ST: I also have seen pictures of the trike you built. Tell me a little bit about that.

Chris: I had seen crazy frankenbikes at a few of the summer festivals in Seattle, and had always wanted to build one myself. After I left Microsoft I had more free time for fun projects. Some friends invited me to join their Burning Man camp. So I had the peer pressure and the bandwidth to learn to weld and chop metal. I bought the plans online, joined an artist/maker collective, and spent my days off between bike tours learning and building. The vehicle was just-barely-rideable for Burning Man, but since then I’ve fixed it up a bit to ride better this summer. I also added a 100-quart cooler on the back!

ST: Would you like your next professional venture to be in the athletics or tech field?

Chris: I’m exploring options on both sides right now! I think I’ve proven to myself that I’m not going to make a living as a racer, but I can still work in athletics by tour guiding and by running GeekFit. But I’m also getting re-inspired to contribute to a small tech company that is doing Cool Stuff. I’m brushing up on my developer skills and looking at a few opportunities. So I guess more of my income will probably come from tech but I expect to keep spending a very health (or unhealthy) portion of my time on active and athletic endeavors.

ST: Any chance you’ll bring back the Austin Endurance Ranch Training Camp?

Chris: I’ll never say never, but right now I’m not getting strongly pulled that way. I’m more likely to help John Kenny or Brett Jenner with one of their camps. They were both involved in the original Austin Endurance Ranch and have done similar camps in the years since then.

ST: And another involvement of yours is with PROTA (Professional Triathlete Association). What is PROTA’s mission?

Chris: PROTA’s mission is to promote, support, and represent the professional multi-sport athlete. I have been a board member since we launched the organization in January 2010.

ST: What athlete-right’s does PROTA stand by?

Chris: Athletes need to have a voice when rule and policy changes are proposed or implemented. The organizations we work with are generally open to getting athlete input when making rule changes, but it can be hard for them to get and it isn’t always their top priority. So we are trying to make that easier. We also look for ways to ensure fair and safe conditions of competition. Oh, and we’re working on a combined prize money list that will let us compare multi-sport athletes across the various disciplines. We’ve talked with successful athlete organizations from other pro sports, and are trying to learn from them. We haven’t yet had as much of an impact as we are hoping to have. It has been a bit tougher than I expected.

ST: Well Chris, good luck on whatever you think of next!

Chris: Thanks! Readers can check out my blog if they want more details and pictures. These days there aren’t a lot of posts to sort through, so it should be easy to find. 😉

http://christremonte.blogspot.com/

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