  The first secant variety of a projective monomial curve is a threefold with
an action by a one-dimensional torus. Its tropicalization is a
three-dimensional fan with a one-dimensional lineality space, so the tropical
threefold is represented by a balanced graph. Our main result is an explicit
construction of that graph. As a consequence, we obtain algorithms to
effectively compute the multidegree and Chow polytope of an arbitrary
projective monomial curve. This generalizes an earlier degree formula due to
Ranestad. The combinatorics underlying our construction is rather delicate, and
it is based on a refinement of the theory of geometric tropicalization due to
Hacking, Keel and Tevelev.
