500 for a watch (admittedly not an annual purchase)
700 for a plane ticket to a marathon site
600 on a hotel
500 on massage equipment
.
These are just some of the costs most runners consider normal these days. I miss when running shoes were something you swung by the local running store to purchase every couple months instead of something you fretted about and read a dozen articles online to decide on.
These are non-essential expenses. Running is only expensive if you make it that way.
Pair of shoes, gas to the race site, entry fees, maybe lodging for one-two nights if further away, and clothes - these are the only expenses you HAVE to incur if you want to race. The only essential expenses are shoes and clothes - everything else is an enhancement. Similar to golf - I know people who say they HAVE to spend $2K on a set of clubs and play courses with $100+ green fees, but you can get buy with a set less than $750 and play munis - the rest is just preferences!
The super shoes are good for a specific kind of race but there are plenty of running events where today's super shoes are not helpful and even put the runner at a disadvantage.
Like what? Have they not been shown to be good for most people in road races even down to people who are nowhere near sub elite
Lots of HS athletes now wear them (and PR bigly) on flat, fast surface courses. If its a groomed course like Cary or anything similar to that, why wouldn't you wear them. Spikes are worthless on a course like that unless its wet. And if its not technical, wear the vapors. Or ultrafly, I've seen those too.
Like what? Have they not been shown to be good for most people in road races even down to people who are nowhere near sub elite
Lots of HS athletes now wear them (and PR bigly) on flat, fast surface courses. If its a groomed course like Cary or anything similar to that, why wouldn't you wear them. Spikes are worthless on a course like that unless its wet. And if its not technical, wear the vapors. Or ultrafly, I've seen those too.
That course is basically a grass track. Even somewhere like Mcalpine benefits a little from spikes.
500 for a watch (admittedly not an annual purchase)
700 for a plane ticket to a marathon site
600 on a hotel
500 on massage equipment
.
These are just some of the costs most runners consider normal these days. I miss when running shoes were something you swung by the local running store to purchase every couple months instead of something you fretted about and read a dozen articles online to decide on.
These are non-essential expenses. Running is only expensive if you make it that way.
You can hold the cost of running down. But you'll need to stay away from a full running "experience," big races, latest shoes, etc. That wasn't true in earlier years.
Huddle ran 32:50 at the Boston 10k for Women this year - just 1:30 off her all-time road PR, and at age 39 and after having a kid a year or two ago. I'd say the supershoes are helping her, now that Saucony finally has some decent ones.
Lots of HS athletes now wear them (and PR bigly) on flat, fast surface courses. If its a groomed course like Cary or anything similar to that, why wouldn't you wear them. Spikes are worthless on a course like that unless its wet. And if its not technical, wear the vapors. Or ultrafly, I've seen those too.
That course is basically a grass track. Even somewhere like Mcalpine benefits a little from spikes.
Cary, NC, is a fast course, but calling it a “grass track” shows that you’ve never been there. The course has almost no grass and has several hills. But, the crushed stone surface is extremely fast. The down hill start and great competition usually pulls people to fast times there.
What of the equipment isn't affordable once you're waged?
Shoes, clothes and maybe watch are the only essentials. Shoes should last you a decent amount of time or you can wear your super shoes for race efforts and intervals and save daily miles on trainers so maybe £400 a year and that's if you're going expensive otherwise £150-200 eminently doable for most if you get most of your shoes on sales as last years version and aren't doing a large number of miles.
Clothes really aren't expensive as long as youre not buying specific Soar or Saysky stuff and not running specific.
Watch can be a few hundred but these can last awhile and you probably don't need a good one. Heck unless you're doing timed intervals or want to track your HR during workouts you can just use your phone fine.
The real cost is in getting the marathon majors under your belt but these are frankly just running holidays and mainly flights and accommodation. If you're wiling to do local events you can drive to on the day or ones covered by a running club membership it's much cheaper.
An improvement that all competitors might benefit from would arguably be a benefit to the sport - like the developments in golf clubs and tennis racquets. But if the shoes benefit some athletes but not others it produces an unfairness in outcome, as those who responded to them wouldn't have had that improvement without the shoes.
What of the equipment isn't affordable once you're waged?
Shoes, clothes and maybe watch are the only essentials. Shoes should last you a decent amount of time or you can wear your super shoes for race efforts and intervals and save daily miles on trainers so maybe £400 a year and that's if you're going expensive otherwise £150-200 eminently doable for most if you get most of your shoes on sales as last years version and aren't doing a large number of miles.
Clothes really aren't expensive as long as youre not buying specific Soar or Saysky stuff and not running specific.
Watch can be a few hundred but these can last awhile and you probably don't need a good one. Heck unless you're doing timed intervals or want to track your HR during workouts you can just use your phone fine.
The real cost is in getting the marathon majors under your belt but these are frankly just running holidays and mainly flights and accommodation. If you're wiling to do local events you can drive to on the day or ones covered by a running club membership it's much cheaper.
This. Running has to be one of the cheapest sports you can participate in and people will still complain. Things like shoes and comfortable clothes aren't even a necessity either.
The super shoes are good for a specific kind of race but there are plenty of running events where today's super shoes are not helpful and even put the runner at a disadvantage.
Like what? Have they not been shown to be good for most people in road races even down to people who are nowhere near sub elite
Cheater shoe is only good for pavement. How do they benefit on grass, gravel, plain ol' dirt?
Thought Seb Coe was going to eliminate WR's as being meaningless now.
Once you're waged I assume what you can and can't afford depends on how waged you are. When I ran at Boston the entry fee was usually $5. I either stayed with someone or in a $12 motel. Adjusted for today's money that's around $100. Throw in $50 more for gas and food. I was waged but not overly so. That's much less then today's entry fee. Someone currently waged like I was probably could not afford to run Boston. And no, running in major marathons is not required and I think I might prefer not to. But if the expenses had stayed in line with what they were in the 70s someone like me could manage to. As I said, it was once a very economical sport that was accessible to pretty much everyone. It no longer is and I find that sad.
Once you're waged I assume what you can and can't afford depends on how waged you are. When I ran at Boston the entry fee was usually $5. I either stayed with someone or in a $12 motel. Adjusted for today's money that's around $100. Throw in $50 more for gas and food. I was waged but not overly so. That's much less then today's entry fee. Someone currently waged like I was probably could not afford to run Boston. And no, running in major marathons is not required and I think I might prefer not to. But if the expenses had stayed in line with what they were in the 70s someone like me could manage to. As I said, it was once a very economical sport that was accessible to pretty much everyone. It no longer is and I find that sad.
No offense intended but none of the things you listed, besides race entry fees, has anything to do with the cost of Running. Everything you listed is simply about the COST OF LIVING and inflation rising over the decades. Gasoline, Food, Lodging, Clothing... none of this has anything to do with 'running' specifically.
ANYONE can participate in 'running' for practically nothing. You can run in a $5 white-cotton Hanes tee, $35 Reebok gym shoes, and $15.99 basketball shorts from Walmart. The costs only begin to mount when you want to RACE in organized events, and/or if you wanna min/max PERFORMANCE through purchasing external aids ($300 carbon racers, $1000 sapphire & titanium watches, $250 Japanese silk tee-shirts, $500 Merino wool pull-overs, $70 "running" water bottles) Frankly, trying to 'buy' your way to a PR is probably the worst Bang-for-the-Buck route a runner can go... The diminishing returns of an $800 Apple Watch Ultra 2 vs. just using your sunk cost iPhone to track that 18 miler LR is beyond absurd.
The average, sedentary, office worker just getting into running will see see ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE performance gains simply hobby jogging 5mi loops around his/her house 5x/wk, drinking out of the garden hose, while wearing last year's Sketchers MaxRoad 5s, verses shelling out $500 for Adidas latest super shoe and spending $200/mo on Maurten. Diminishing returns bub. Running as a sport is essentially free. Racing is not.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
In today's money the entry fee alone for a race like Boston is more than twice what it cost me to do the whole thing, i.e., enter, travel, and stay. Another change today that's rarely mentioned is that starting times were nearly always between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. That meant that for most races you could stay home on the night before your race, drive to it on race morning, and drive home afterward. I can only think of three marathons I ran other than Boston where I stayed somewhere other than home on the night before. Now races, marathons anyway, all start between 7:00 and 9:00 AM. Theoretically it could still be possible to get up a crack or two before dawn and still drive there on race morning except you typically can only get your number at the expo which closes on the evening before the race. Total rip off. Add fifty cents to the $200 entry fee and mail race numbers to people entered by a particular date.
When I said that running was once a very simple and inexpensive sport I meant racing. I'm not sure I even consider running but not racing a sport.