The FilAmTri Club got started in NJ when after a chance encounter of a few Filipino athletes, but this club now has chapters all over the world. We had a few words with founder Arland Macasieb about how it all came together and where it is now.

Slowtwitch: Thank you for your time Arland.

Arland Macasieb: Hi Herbert, thank you. Love what you, Dan, Jordan and the Slowtwitch team have been doing all these years!

ST: You are too kind, but I think you were hit by a car recently?

Arland: Yes. Last September I was on my bike, hit from behind and dragged over 100ft by a 1959 corvette. I am lucky to be alive.

ST: How much of that do you still feel today and what is the prognosis?

Arland: I feel a lot of the effects and much of my life has adapted. Like now, I am using voice to text instead of typing. The prognosis is uncertain and as I will have more surgeries to come later this year. Please wish me luck!

ST: We certainly wish you luck. We also would love to learn more about FilAmTri. When and how did that get started?

Arland: I had been racing triathlon since 1995. Usually I would be the only Filipino in most races I entered and often the only Asian. Then in 2006 at the Randolph Lake Triathlon here in NJ, to my surprise, I met a group of about 10 Filipinos and one of them became my partner and now we have 2 kids. We all became friends and decided we should form a formal club. So we invited all our friends who could swim, bike or run to our first meeting maybe about 40 people by this time and we formed the Filipino American Triathlon Club. We started out by doing track workouts together, group bike rides and then some open water swims. It was great to see people start from their first 5k and then see them do IRONMAN.

ST: Had you been part of any other triathlon club prior and at that time what did it look like in terms of options of tri clubs.

Arland: Prior to starting Fil-Am Tri, I had been part of Team Excel here in NJ and also the Paramount Triathlon club. I was also a member of the Berkeley Aquatic Masters swim team, The Millburn bike shop cycling team, and the Sneaker Factory running club. There are definitely more tri clubs now. But back then as you can see, I was training with a lot of single sport clubs/teams.

ST: But there aren’t just Filipino athletes in the FilAmTri club.

Arland: No. Fil-Am Tri is open to all! About 75-80% of the club are Filipinos. But then there is also this interesting cultural dynamic mixing among Filipinos who were born in the Philippines and 2nd and 3rd generation Filipino Americans like me who born here in the USA. Then we have wives and husbands of Filipinos who are different races, kids who are Mestizo and Mestisa “mixed races” half-Pinoy or half Pinay like HER and Apl De AP from the Black Eyed Peas. He’s actually a cyclist you know? He did the bike leg at the Cebu IRONMAN Philippines 70.3 one year! We made him an honorary member of the club! Our club also has chapters in Canada, Bahrain, UAE, and of course the Philippines.

ST: But there are various chapters in the US too. Where are they?

Arland: The biggest chapters here in the US are here in NY/NJ, Chicago, Southern California both in LA and San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California. Also Houston and Dallas, Texas. Plus on the islands of Guam and Hawaii.

ST: Can you maybe break it down in terms of gender?

Arland: : By gender we are still a mostly male club maybe also 75% but our wives and girlfriends and partners tend to be heavily involved in the club. They throw our parties and support us when we do races especially the IMs and Marathons.

ST: Do you have any plans to get more females training and racing?

Arland: Of course! We have a number of younger female runners and cyclists who just need to add the swim to their arsenal and then they will be ready to tri. That’s also why I love events that have relay divisions as those are a great way to get single sport people involved and interested.

ST: What is the total membership right now and do you see it growing larger?

Arland: Right now we only have about 300 or so paid members. Those numbers ebb and flow depending if people are racing or not. The pandemic was tough for events but highlight of that time was racing other Filipino clubs on Zwift.

I do hope we can keep growing every year. We were actually recently won a grant from USAT so we will be using that money for projects to help grow and support the community. It was always my dream to have a FilAm tri chapter in every US state.

ST: Initially triathlon clubs were very regional, but seemingly we see more national or even international squads these days. Maybe the internet and all these social media channels made that possible.

Arland: Agree! If it weren’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t have been able to grow the club like we did. The beauty of our network is that wherever you race there is usually a local chapter of FilAmTri who can support you. I even had friends in Germany when I did challenge Roth and local friends in Australia when I raced in Melbourne and Perth. And we try to share this network with all of our members. Our club has been responsible for several marriages already! One of them being one of our members here in NJ and her husband in CA where they now live. There is a saying there are “6 degrees of separation” between everyone in the world. With Filipinos there are only 3!

ST: Looking back at all the races you have done, which ones bring back the fondest memories, and what are they?

Arland: Wow so many! Of course IRONMAN Hawaii, the Boston Marathon especially the year after the bombing, the NYC marathon is always great. IRONMAN Nice, Wildfower RIP was a great time camping with my FAT teammates. I also loved racing XTERRA Guam, Saipan and the Tagaman triathlon. Such well kept secrets. And of course the races in the Philippines are dearest to heart.

ST: What else keeps you busy right now?

Arland: After retiring from racing, I was focusing on bike fitting and fabricating custom orthotics. But after my crash, I am in Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy 3x a week. Because of my injuries, I have spent a lot of time in front of a screen. I followed the Tour de France for almost every stage this year. But we are still supporting our athletes. We actually spent the weekend up in Lake Placid, we had almost 20 athletes in the race. It was really hard this year because of the heat and the wind was especially strong.

ST: Do you have any ambitions to get back to being active once you are better?

Arland: I hope so. Maybe one of these years I can be like one of those comeback stories they feature on the NBC coverage of Kona.

ST: Is there anything else we should know?

Arland: I just wanted to take the opportunity to say how proud I am of our club but there is one person I need to single out. I am the front man, but it is really our COO Noriel Simsuangco in LA who handles most the day to day and puts out all the fires. He is the main reason FAT is where it is today. He also recently raced Kona! Our next interview should feature him.