Greg's Weight Loss Blog

Running is supposed to be cheap. It’s supposed to be one of those hobbies/sports/entertainment that costs close to nothing. But as everything else, it can cost a ton if you choose so.

I’m one of those people who like to do everything full steam. I had written about my prior hobbies before, model helicopters, remote control cars, photography, paintball, and I must say I had spent a great deal of time and money on every single one of them.

Model helicopters aren’t a very cheap hobby to being with and they can be downright draining if you’d like to fly one of the bigger birds with lots of power doing all kinds of maneuvers. I was pretty cautious with the spending but even then I still managed to spend over $2,000 for equipment not to mention the $20/gallon fuel cost. And those birds, as small as they might be do drink a lot. A gallon a weekend adds up in a hurry. My R/C car racing stint that lasted about 3 years was even more expensive. The radio, car and pit equipment was coming in over $2,000 again and weekend race fees and tires were close to $100 per race weekend. Again, another expensive hobby. With paintball, fast electro-pneumatic markers (they don’t call them guns, they call them markers) can cost north of $1,000 while other equipment and clothing can total over $500 as well. But then you also pay $20 for field and compressed air fees and another $20 for each bucket of paintball that you go through trying to hit the other guy in the crotch. Photography can be very expensive with $10,000+ spent on lenses, camera bodies, flashes and light modifiers. But since the digital era at least you don’t have to buy film and developing solutions constantly, you only spend money on faster and better computers and software updates.

As the economists would specify, each hobby has a fixed cost and a marginal cost. Fixed cost is the minimum amount of equipment you’d have to purchase to engage in the hobby for any length of time. With remote control toys, it’s the cost of the vehicle, the cost of the radio and other equipment. With paintball it’s the price of the initial gear. With photography, it’s the cost of the lens and camera body and editing software. Marginal cost is the price you pay for each outing/photo/shot/mile. With remote control stuff it’s the price of fuel, wear and tear parts, tires etc. With paintball it’s the field cost and ammunition. With photography it used to be the cost of film and now there is not much marginal cost in photography that is why people take thousands of photographs every day instead of shooting a roll of film at Christmas and another at the cousin’s wedding in the summer.

Running is not much different. There is the initial cost of running then there is the marginal cost. The initial cost can be as little as a pair of good quality running shoes. You go out, buy a pair of shoes, put on your regular cotton shirt and your old worn gym shorts and off you go. You can run and you can have fun for practically nothing. But if you are like me, you will need some more gear. So far this is what I had spent on the sport of running:

• 5 technical shirts – $120
• 4 running shorts (some of my co-workers call them Speedos, that is how short they are) – $100
• 8 pairs of CoolMax running socks – $40
• 2 sets of warm-up pants/tops – $150
• 2 Under Armour long sleeve winter shirts – $100
• Under Armour winter running tights – $50
• Running Vest – $40
• Running Jacket – $100
• 2 pairs of running gloves – $30
• 3 running hats – $40
• Pepper spray – $18
• RoadID Tag – $30
• Reflective belt and light – $40
• 3 pairs of running shoes – $240
• Polar RS800cx heart rate monitor with footpod and GPS – $600
• Racing bib strap – $18
• Mp3 Player – $60
• Headphones – $90

Overall I have spent close to $1,900 on running gear and related equipment. This is my fixed cost. It might seem like a ton of money but I think of it as an investment in my future and an investment in my health. And in the grand scheme of things it is not much more than what I had spent on any of my prior hobbies as the entry fee. The single most expensive item on the list was my heart rate monitor and it was one that many would think was probably the most unnecessary. Especially when you consider that I had a perfectly fine, working heart rate monitor that I just replaced with it. Sure, my old one didn’t have all the bells and whistles the new one has but it was still displaying my heart rate which is ultimately what you buy a heart rate monitor for. But if the capability of logging my runs and keeping track of my improvement is what it takes to be a better, more diligent runner then I think the cost was more than justified.

So what about the marginal cost of running? The only real expenses are going to be shoes and race fees. At the rate I’m running I’ll be going through shoes in about one every two-three months. That means it’s a cost of $30-$45 a month that I need to budget for shoes. I’ll be doing some racing in the near future and at $20-$100 a race they can be expensive even if they’re local to you, not to mention travel cost if you decide to go out of town for a race.

So unlike some other hobbies where the entry price is fixed, running can be done as cheaply or as expensively as you want. And unlike some of my other hobbies the marginal cost of running is relatively low. You can run 3 miles every day in your trusty old shorts and t-shirt for practically nothing or you can train with the latest gadgets and tech apparel for a $100 race on the weekend out of town costing a lot of money. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, the only important part is to get out and run!