The Cost of Tri

On one of my recent browses on the internet, I came across a blog written by a triathlon hater. Naive me, I hadn’t realized that there are actually people out there who despise the sport of triathlon, and triathletes more specifically. I shouldn’t be surprised, I am sure I can find a group that hates puppies too (not that I’m comparing triathletes to puppies). Some people were put on this earth to just hate and criticize everything- poor bastards. I heard about cycling purist not liking triathletes joining them on their group rides because of the triathlete’s bike handling skills, or lack thereof, in a group - triathletes tend to ride alone most of the time, whereas cyclist tend to ride in groups. I should add, I manage to crash on my solo ride today on my tri bike when I looked down at my watch for just a moment too long. Also, I don’t think cyclist like it too much when the triathlete shows up for a group ride on his time-trial bike - cyclist like to practice drafting, which apparently doesn’t work too well behind a guy in the aero position. And then there is “that guy” who shows up for a group ride in full tri gear, including the time-trial helmet. I have actually witnessed this firsthand; don’t be that guy.

I won’t bother posting Mr. Hater’s link; I have no desire to increase traffic to his blog, considering how much I disagree with most of what he has to say. In his blog, he refers to triathlon as an elitist sport created for elitist. He rants on and on about a sport that isolates itself from the rest of the endurance sports because of its “have” versus “have not” focus. I chose to zero in on this aspect of his blog and ignore the rest of what he had to say about triathletes because I think there is some truth to his madness. As a runner most of my life, I never worried much about how expensive the sport was. Most of the time I had two to three pairs of running shoes I was always training and racing in, but beyond that, the expense of the sport was very low. Running seems to attract more low and middle income earners- I always called it the poor man’s sport. Compared to the cost of triathlon, running is dirt cheap. I’m not just talking about the equipment that comes with the sport, but also the cost of entry to race, and other miscellaneous expenses. Even tri clothing is excessively and unnecessarily expensive- a pair of bike shorts can easily cost over a $100. A tri suite can easily run in excess of $200. This would explain why I have only 3 pairs of bike (tri) shorts, 2 bike shirts, and 2 tri tops. I should mention that most of the gear I own I bought when it was on sale during the off season. Up until this year, I rode a bike I’ve owned for 12 years, bike shoes I’ve had for 10 years, and a wetsuit I’ve had for 10 years. At the end of the day, it takes money to take on this sport, how much depends on the individual. One could easily go through their entire paycheck or savings trying to get all the latest and greatest gear. I work in education, so obviously I have to be conscious about my purchases in this sport.

Here comes the part where I ramble on probably way too much. To be completely truthful, at times I find myself missing the simplicity of a single inexpensive sport like running. Other than the advancement in shoe technology, there is no other piece of running equipment that has advanced the performance of the sport. There are even groups out there who run with no shoes at all- I have run with some of these guys and based on what I’ve seen, I think they should go back to wearing shoes. I regress. More than once I have asked myself the question (I talk to myself a lot but not out loud) - do I belong in a sport that cost so much money and so much time? Outside of anyone who has lots of time and money to spend, does anyone really belong in this sport? Recently I read in a triathlon magazine, that to do an Ironman, you need to be able to invest at least 18-20+ hours a week for training. That works out to 3-4 hours a day for 5-7 days a week, and that is just for the training. Who has that kind of time? The unemployed and part-time workers immediately come to mind. How do these folks afford this sport?  Perhaps they are inherently wealthy. I know the sport has grown significantly in popularity amongst top executive types- here is a great article about this: The Ironman: Triathlete Executives' Ultimate Status Feat. I really don't understand how top business executives have time to train for Ironman. And now you can see why the tri-hater's blog caught my attention.       

The last thing I want to do is scare anyone away from this sport. I’m drawn to this sport for many reasons, most of which you can read about in my first blog. Triathlons have a way of making you feel more alive than you’ve ever felt, while simultaneously being the most humbling experience one could have. Nothing compares to it. I’m not a historian when it comes to my knowledge of the sport, though I did read Ironwar, which has a good amount of history. I’ve also watched footage of many past Ironman Hawaii races and read up on many of the current guys competing. But beyond that, I know very little about the history of the sport. My decision to get into triathlons had nothing to do with past professionals who crossed the finish line. If that were my reason for getting in the sport, I wouldn’t last long. I do this sport for the simple reason, I like the challenge and enjoyment I get from training and racing in three disciplines.

While triathlon is excessively expensive, there are ways to go about this sport without breaking the bank. It will take a lot of creativity, planning, and will power, but it can be done… I think. Will power is probably one of the biggest challenges for many of us. We see something we want that we are sure will make us that much better, and that can send us on a journey of figuring out how we can afford this thing. And if we make the purchase, we will spend the following months justifying the expense. Truth is most of the “stuff” out there will at best only give you improvement that can be measured in seconds. In other words, unless you are competing against the top professionals, the “stuff” isn’t worth it. Logic, not emotion is your greatest ally when deciding what purchases to make. If you can’t invest the right amount of time training or train the right way, it won’t make any difference what bike, wetsuit, shoes, wheelset, helmet, power meter, trainer, hydration system, and gps watch you buy. The guy who trains for 20 hours a week on a low end tri bike will almost always outperform the guy who trains for 5 hours a week on the most expensive tri bike. Walk through any prerace bike transition area and you will see where emotion won over logic. This is bike porn at its greatest. On my last Olympic distance triathlon, I lost count at around 85 high-end tri bikes.

If money is an object, you need to be smart and get a little creative about your purchases. I have a very nice tri bike that I bought used this year. I bought in to the emotional hype that I talked about avoiding in the last paragraph. My bike is the one piece of equipment that doesn’t really follow the logic approach. Now with that said, this purchase was far from an impulse purchase. I researched and test road different bike for months before deciding on the bike. Once I made my decision, I scoured the internet for used bikes, mainly on ebay. There is no reason that I can see to buy a bike new when you can get crazy deals on ebay. My bike new would easily cost double what I got it for.  How do you like my justification so far?

Going into the season, there were 4 pieces of equipment I “wanted”, a new bike, new bike shoes, a new helmet, and a wetsuit. The wife bought me new bike shoes as a gift, and now I was just down to a helmet and a wetsuit. This is where creativity and some good old fashion luck came into play. Again, I researched about all the best wetsuits out there. I couldn’t afford the cost of a new wetsuit, so I chose to write to a number of different wetsuit companies, asking them if they could loan or give me a wetsuit to train and race in. I explained to them that I was doing a blog as a newbie triathlete and was planning to write reviews about the different products I raced in, not as an experienced or pro triathlete, but instead as a guy just getting into this sport. Of all the companies I wrote, TYR was the only one that responded and sent me their high-end Hurricane 5 wetsuit. Second in line to the TYR Freak of Nature, this is TYR’s next best wetsuit, costing $600 new. And so I was down to the helmet. I joined Chris McCormack’s online triathlon group, MACCAX, and was entered shortly thereafter into a raffle to win lots of great triathlon gear, including a new Specialized Time-Trial helmet. And luck have it, I won the helmet, which I should add is the first time I won anything in a raffle. Had I not won the helmet, I would’ve stuck with the helmet I already owned. More to come in the following blogs about some of this gear.

Planning is an important process of triathlon training and racing. It is also important to plan when it comes to selecting what races you want to do for the following year. Many of the top races sell out within days or weeks of being listed - 2013 Ironman Arizona sold out in 1 minute, and Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship Melbourne sold out in five minutes. If you have any intention of racing the top events, you will need to sit down and plan things out well in advance. This can be challenging to do when races are 8-10 months out. This becomes even more challenging when you factor in work and family for destination races. Then there is the cost of racing. I didn’t plan far enough in advance for my first 70.3 in Oceanside, which sold out of general entry slots well before I even considered doing the distance.  So I went online and started looking for other “Ironman” sanctioned races in Southern California. Turns out, there weren’t any. So I could pay to travel to a destination race or fork over $670 for an Ironman Foundation slot in the Oceanside race. When I factored in the cost of a plane ticket, hotel, rental car, shipment of bike, and other miscellaneous travel expenses, the $670 was considerably less. For this amount, I could’ve raced 5 Boston Marathons. 

Shortly after Oceanside, I decided to sign up for a destination 70.3 race in Racine, Wisconsin. I chose this race because it seemed to fit into my training schedule well. I paid $250 this time, and booked hotel for 3 days. Nearly a month and a half before the race, I needed to pull out of the race because of work and family schedule. Turns out I missed the refund date by one week. In other words, I had to eat the $250- thanks Ironman! They refused to refund any of my money after several back and forth emails. At least I was able to cancel my hotel reservation. So, two races (really just one race) cost me nearly a grand. With a bad taste in my mouth, I started doing more research into the Ironman company, and it turns out, I’m not the only one who has a grievance against this greedy company. I read about one poor fellow who was refused a refund or transfer when his father died suddenly and he needed to attend the funeral the day of the race. With running events like marathons and 5K's, the money made mostly goes to charitable endeavors and maintaining the race. This is a major reason why municipalities are willing to let organizers use their streets. It is for a good cause and promotes health. An Ironman is different. It is about profit. I am probably going way too far on a tangent, but I find it very strange that the name Ironman is copyrighted. That would be like a company copyrighting the name Marathon and making people pay more to race in one of its Marathon races. People want to be able to say they are a Marathoner, or in the case of triathlon, Ironman, so they pay the higher price of their events. And I won’t even get in to the merchandising of the M-dot logo, which I’m sure alone has made the company more money than the races themselves. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I will save it for another blog. I’ve decided next year I will not be giving any more money to this group and only be registering for non-ironman named events that go the same distance. There are plenty of these events out there.

Coaching is another big expense. I’m not going to go into the cost of coaching, mainly because I didn’t go 

that route and instead decided to join Chris McCormack’s online triathlon community MACCAX, which includes a lot of great training videos and training plans for a fraction of what it would cost to get a coach. If I had the money, I would invest in a swim coach. Swimming is more dependent on technique than the other two disciplines, and unless you’ve been swimming most of your life, your technique will prevent you from making big improvements. One could also join a master’s swim group as a more economical way of taking on the swim. There are even cycling and running groups to join for free if you don’t like the idea of doing these things alone. In Los Angeles, there are 4 major triathlon clubs within 25 miles of where I live. While I don’t belong to any of these groups, I know some triathletes who have benefited greatly from having a group to train and race with.

At the end of the day, it does take money to get the essentials to do this sport. Most of the big ticket items are related to the biking part of the sport. If your goal is to just get out there and enjoy swimming, biking, and running, and you don’t have any gear yet, then expect to spend about $2000-$3000 on equipment alone. Factor in another $500-$1000 a year if you want to partake in some of the races. Once you have the gear, obviously the yearly expense of being a triathlete isn’t that much. Back to the original thought expressed by the triathlete hater- this is a sport that has its fair share of elitist types, more so than you would experience in other endurance sports like running. And by elitist, I mean those who have lots of money to spend. However, in my short experience in the sport, I have also come across plenty of triathletes who are anything but elitist. Triathlons seem to attract a much broader group of people, all walks of life. As far as time goes, I have figured out how to train (lots of really early mornings) for the half-ironman distance without sacrificing a lot of family and work time. This becomes exceedingly difficult, maybe even impossible for me, to step up to the full distance, but only time will tell.