Jesse Thomas made amateur age-group triathletes believe they could reach the pinnacle of the sport, too.

Thomas, who grew up in Bend and still lives here, was a collegiate distance runner who did not start competing in triathlon until his 30s.

But he would go on to win the prestigious Wildflower Triathlon in California six times and also win two Ironman events.

Like many age-groupers, Thomas did it all while balancing a career and starting a family.

Thomas, now 40, has not raced a triathlon in nearly two years, mostly due to injury. He officially announced his retirement from triathlon earlier this month.

“I felt like I had been retired for maybe six to nine months, and with COVID and everything going on, it kind of felt like incredibly unimportant news,” Thomas said. “But what was really nice is when I made the announcement, it was cool that people cared.”

Thomas is the CEO of Picky Bars, an energy bar company he founded with his wife, Lauren Fleshman, with whom he as a 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. Over the past couple of years, Thomas has focused increasingly on the business, and that, combined with a lingering foot injury, has kept him from competing.

“It wasn’t really intentional that I would go this long without racing,” he said. “But it just kind of happened, between really needing to focus on the business and then hurting myself last spring. It was a slow shift to more and more I was really enjoying working on the business. And the impact of that was really personally satisfying, and I was just enjoying spending more time with my family, and not being as tired all the time.”

Thomas is a former state-champion distance runner at Bend’s Mountain View High School and was the 2001 Pac-10 steeplechase champion at Stanford. (Fleshman was a five-time NCAA champion at Stanford and two-time U.S. champion in the 5,000 meters.)

After college, Thomas worked in San Francisco for a tech startup, but eventually found his calling in triathlon, much later in life than most pro triathletes.

He burst onto the scene in 2011, winning the Wildflower at age 31 while wearing aviator sunglasses that would become his trademark.

“That put me on the map in 2011, being unknown and wearing my weird aviators,” he recalled. “That story ended up being the foundation of my career, this 30-year-old starting triathlon … it was like every age-groupers’ dream. I got into triathlon when I was 30 and I became super competitive.”

Thomas would go on to win the Wildflower five more times, and win the Ironman Wales in 2015 and the Ironman Lanzarote on the Canary Islands in 2016. The Ironman triathlon distance includes a 2.4-mile open-water swim, a 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.

In the win at Lanzarote, Thomas defeated Jan Frodeno, a five-time Ironman world champion from Germany and widely regarded as one of the best triathletes in the world.

“Being able to say you beat Jan Frodeno in an Ironman is pretty awesome,” Thomas said. “That’s a moment I’ll definitely never forget.”

Thomas competed in the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, twice, finishing 16th in 2016 and 28th in 2017.

Thomas said the sport of triathlon has become increasingly competitive, making it harder for somebody to get started in their 30s and rise to the top, as he did.

“It’s fundamentally changed,” he says. “In 2013 and again in 2017, each year, there was a new round of guys coming over from the Olympic distance, once they were done chasing the Olympics. And these are young kids that have been doing triathlon, basically professionally, their entire lives. So it got much more competitive.”

While Thomas is finished with competitive triathlons, he has not ruled out a return to racing for fun, such as the Pole Pedal Paddle, Central Oregon’s popular multisport race each May that includes skiing, cycling, running and paddling. Thomas won the PPP in 2015 and 2018.

“Honestly, winning the Pole Pedal Paddle is right up there for me,” Thomas said. “It’s a top-five thing. The start of the PPP (in 2018), I was as nervous for that race as I was for any in my career. I would love to take another crack at the Pole Pedal Paddle. I was planning to do it this year, and luckily for me it got canceled because I was hurt anyway.”

Thomas has a full year to train, should he attempt a third victory in the PPP. For now, he will focus on his burgeoning business and his young family.

“I do feel like I’m going from being a pro triathlete to a full-time pro CEO,” he said, “and hopefully I can make a bigger impact on the local community with Picky Bars than I could or did as an athlete.”