An Expensive Habit: The Price of Running

Running could be free... if you run on your bare feet, in the nude, and if you don't replace the energy you burn.  We did it many millennia ago, though we didn't get far.  The first person verified to have run the marathon distance died.  Would it have helped if he had hydrated properly?  Probably.   It seems like all you need is a pair of shoes and some sweats. I mean sure, if you're budget-challenged, then you certainly can run on the cheap.  The rest of us, though, can spend quite a lot of money on running because we're obsessed with getting every advantage we can.  We're either trying to get under two hours in the half marathon, or achieve some other objective that very few other people care about.  Yet it seems really important to us, though.

On my last long run (16k), I fuelled up with a Honey Stinger Waffle ($2.49), a Honey Stinger Fruit Punch Gel ($1.99), and a tablet of Nuun dissolved into (Brita) filtered water ($.80)--all of which is, of course, organic.  Along the way I consumed two small packs of Sports Beans ($3.98).  I wore Hoka One One Bondi 4's ($180), an Adidas cold weather top ($120), New Balance bottoms ($80), wool socks ($5), Under Armour underwear ($20), New York Jets headband (free) and an Under Armour base layer ($100).  After the run was over I consumed a whey isolate protein shake (approx $1) and about $12 worth of food from Tim Hortons (to replace the 1500 calories I had just burned).  So basically my 16k run cost me (after we adjust for the fact that my shoes and clothes will be worn on more than just this one occasion) roughly as follows:

• Food: $22.26 (If we're being honest, I don't really need to spend $12 at Tim's every time I run 16k or more.)
• Wear on shoes: $4.86 (This assumes that I wear the Hoka's for 600 kilometres--Truth be told, they'll probably be retired closer to 400 kilometres since they're in a rotation of about 6 active pairs of running shoes, and 2 pairs of biking shoes).
• Clothing: $3-6 (Really depends on how long these items last.  I typically replace everything yearly, and I have multiple sets of clothing... so let's stick with $6).

So the grand total for my 16k run on Saturday was $33.12.  That's about $2.07 per kilometre!  I plan to run just over 700 kilometres by June 1st.

My god this is an expensive habit.