The Prohibitive Cost of Racing Triathlons and What Can Be Done to Fix It

Those of us who participate in the sport of triathlon do so for a number of reasons. We love the challenge of competing against ourselves and our peers in a test of both physical and mental endurance. We enjoy the camaraderie of the triathlon community—sharing our knowledge of gear, nutrition, courses and training. We appreciate just how insanely dedicated our fellow triathletes are who wake up at five a.m. throughout the year to allow time for them to negotiate their jobs, families and training.

Unfortunately, for many athletes that I train with, the sport has also become a test of financial endurance. I recently heard a statistic that was published in Triathlete magazine, which stated that the average annual income of triathletes was $120,000. This statistic might not be taking into account the modest group of athletes that I train with who talk about the prohibitive costs associated with running triathlons. In some respects, triathlon has become the new "sport of kings" with serious age group triathletes having to spend a small fortune just to own the gear, let alone shell out the dough to participate. Think about it: wetsuit, bike, shoes. Those are the basics. Then there are the ongoing costs associated with training: nutrition, shoes, bathing suits, goggles. The last category of expenditures falls into the sleuth of peripheral "toys" we feel are necessary to make us faster athletes: GPS, tri shorts and top, heart monitors, wattage monitor, lap counter. Sure, I put tri shorts and top here. I raced this whole past season in my Speedo Jammers—Jammers, I said—I did not go "old school" (thank goodness) like Farris al Sultan and sport the bikinis. Of course, triathlon is the only sport in which a man can wear Speedos and sport a crop top and be considered one of the manliest hombre's on the planet. I just did not see the need to shell out an additional $65 dollars for something I can live without. Sure, my butt was a little sore after riding 56 miles without a chamois, but I survived.

We see professionals race on their full carbon bikes and think that we need to shell out serious dough to take our bike leg to the next level, after all, bike manufacturers tell us all the time that their bike is the fastest bike on the planet, in the wind tunnel, milky way galaxy, universe. I could shave as much as 12 seconds per 40 kilometers or almost a minute over the course of an Ironman bike. Wow! I am sure to give Craig Alexander a real run for his money with that kind of improvement. More, the rider accounts for 85% of the overall drag on the bike, yet amateur triathletes everywhere are searching for the most "aero" bike affordable in the hopes that it will guarantee them an unprecedented bike split on race day. I have been fortunate to have decent splits on the bike this season. I attribute that to training really hard. I am pretty sure that if I had my "dream bike" complete with NASA engineered aerodynamics built with carbon and space age materials, and I rode my proverbial a _ _ off, I would still not be faster than Lance Armstrong riding a Schwinn ten speed on his worst day. Someone once told me "there is no substitute for youth." That being true, there is also no substitute for training your tail off and wanting to improve way more than someone your racing against. A friend of mine raced to two top 5 overall finishes on a Schwinn 10-speed for a sprint. No kidding!

Now, lets talk about the costs of races. The average sprint cost—a race comprised of a 800 yard open water swim, 16 mile bike ride and a 5K is around $70. As the distances increase, so do the costs. The average Ironman costs averaging around $500. Yes, $500. I have done some simple arithmetic to hep you understand just how much per hour of your hard earned cash you are shelling out to go out and beat the hell out of your body for 11+ hours:

12 hour Ironman=$42 an hour, 13 hours=$38 hour, 17 hours=$29 hour

It seems to me that if you are going to be running an Ironman, a shade under 17 hours would give you the most bang for your buck. Be out there as long as possible. Pocket as many Hammer Gels to use later on training runs. Get an i.v.—even if you don't need one. After the race, do the post-race massage, chiropractor, ice bath—you've paid for it!

Maybe it's the law of supply and demand. In the early days of Ironman, Valerie Silk had to work hard to increase the number of participants from 100 to 300 (You can read the complete history of the Ironman race here.) Coincidentally, losing Budweiser as an official sponsor along the way might have been a decent idea. Now, over 60,000 athletes compete for a chance to win a spot to the most coveted Ironman distance race in the world: The Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona. I once read that "...a product only retains currency so long as it is current," and triathlon is very current right now. I have my theories as to the huge explosion of the sport, but that might be a post for another occasion. Back to Kona; let's examine just how much money is made on the entrance fees alone. Approximately 1800 athletes participated in the 2009 Ford Ironman in Kona:

$550X1800=$990,000. Nice, just shy of a cool million. That is not counting the throngs of corporate sponsors who shell out big bucks to participate in expos, be an official race sponsor, or have their products used on the course. I am sure that the job of Race Director for any Ironman distance event is no small task, and there has to be some administrative costs associated with the team of people that work year round putting these events together, as well as insurance, permits, etc, I am just not sure if I can commit to racing an Ironman AND smaller races in preparation for that event without the help of winning the lottery. My friends and I would do a lot more races if they were more affordable. So what can be done?

Grass roots friends! Look, there is no substitute for participating in an official USAT sanctioned event. Nothing beats the excitement of rolling your trusty steed into transition at some unGodly hour with a thousand other nervous, anxious athletes setting up their transition area and mentally preparing for a 7:00 a.m. swim in brisk water. However, that does not mean you can not grab a group of athletes from your local triathlon club for a little friendly weekend competition. This past summer, I held a "Poor Man's F1" from my house: run 2, bike 10, run 1, bike 10, run 2. It was the same day as an "official" F1 event that all of us wanted to run, but were unwilling to shell out the $85 dollar entrance fee to race an hour and a half. Four of us competed and we each won our age groups. Seriously, we were all very competitive. We set up a transition area on my lawn and raced into transition with every intention of getting out of transition area as quickly as possible. This past season, I have spoke to many triathletes who are interested in putting together an athlete run triathlon. Can we get enough athletes to volunteer their time, resources and some dough to put it together? I am not talking anything extraordinary here. The theory is that we all know enough people that we could set up aid stations along a course. Of course, their is the little issue of a safe bike course. But, how is it any different than a group of bicyclists going out for a Sunday ride? When you go on weekend rides, some folks fall back, and others forge ahead. Of course, we usually stop and wait for the slower riders to catch up. I liken it to going out on a country ride by myself. I guess I just need to remember to wear my Road I.D. I don't have any idea how much police escorts cost, professional road sweeping and other costs associated with triathlon, but I would like to do some research. If any of you have any ideas or commentary, I welcome it. Wouldn't it be cool to design your own finishing medal?!

5K and More Stretching

I had a good week of swimming that capped off with a 2500 yard Master Swim on Sunday (a little more than a mile and a quarter.) One of my students who is on the college swim team told me that their warm-up is 2200 yards and that he usually swims between 7000 and 10,000 yards during a practice. Of course, he gets the advantage of only training one sport as opposed to three simultaneously. I spent the first half an hour in the pool learning how to do flip turns. The result: not quite there yet. I can not seem to manage a somersault in the pool, even though I spent countless hours doing them as a child vying for the attention of my parents who pretended to watch for hours.

I ran my first 5K since my injury back in September on Saturday. I made sure I warmed up the legs beforehand by stretching and doing a nice pre-race jog. I started slow. I ran with my brother for the first half mile who runs at a slightly slower pace than I do. I picked up the pace about a mile in. I could feel the fatigue in my legs still and my wind was a little short after not running for so long. A lot of athletes I talk to think that swimming is the most difficult cardiovascular workout, (someone recently told me that it requires four times the effort to swim a mile than it does to run one.) It may very well be a better cardiovascular workout, but I do not think there is any substitution for any of the disciplines. I noticed that I really could not push it too much more than I was doing. I ended up running a moderate 7:51 pace for the race. The knees and foot felt good until my brother ended up finishing and we went back to run with his wife. I noticed my right knee started hurting a little bit and I had a slight pain on the left side of my right foot. It will subside—I have been there before. My friend Jodie—who reminded me several times that she beat me—was awarded first prize for females 20-29—great job Jodie! (That's her on the left with the pink hat with Karen Leastman who also ran.) My brother Leonard ended up running 4-minute PB over his fastest 5K. Now, that is impressive! I am not sure he realizes just how ridiculous of an improvement that is over a 5K.

As a result of all this discomfort, I have started an intense daily stretching routine. My goal is to increase my overall flexibility. My wife, who has the flexibility of Gumby, is coaching me along and we are starting to stretch together in the evenings. Remarkably, I have seen dramatic results after only a few days of prolonged (at least 20-30 minutes) of stretching. My hamstrings were not just tight, they were a liability out there racing. Tight hamstrings lead to a shorter stride, knee, hamstring and foot pain. What tends to happen is that I will compensate for my muscle tightness by changing my natural gait—not good!

I am very conscious of not eating like an Ironman while my training has decreased in volume over the last month, but it has been difficult. I make sure that I am on that bike or in that pool everyday burning some calories keeping my weight down.

I am going to try to run another race this weekend. There is a great 10 miler for Hospice, but I think I better listen to my body right now and just run another 5K and reassess things after that.

Getting Faster, Going Nowhere, Lost and Found

It was actor Val Kilmer in his role as Chris Knight in the finest comedic film ever made about lasers liquidating individual human targets from space—the 1985 classic Real Genius—who said "...sometimes you just need to take a little step back to take a giant leap forward. "

The last couple of weeks have been a dichotomy of sorts. On one hand, I have not done ANY running—except the visualizations in my head— since 20 September (date of the last triathlon of the season.) The break has been necessary in helping to recover from the damage I suffered as a result of not respecting the marathon distance nearly as much I should have. Note to self: weekend-warrior-ing a marathon, bad.

However, I have gotten in the pool nearly every day for the last three weeks. The result:

I have managed to take off nearly a minute and a half per 1000 yards from my usual swims. I am thinking less about my form in the water and things are just starting to happen naturally. I have noticed that I am really starting to roll my shoulders and get streamlined. I have also gotten myself back into strength training. I have not really done any since I dislocated my shoulder back in March. Certainly I am swimming faster in the water because of my consistency, but I have also been swimming faster to swim faster. I notice that the muscle density in my legs make them want to sink if I am going at a moderate tempo—or for you hardcore endurance junkies and triathlon nerds—an RPE of about 1-5.

I lost my wedding ring on Monday. I looked down at my hand after getting home from work for just a few minutes and told my wife "I think my ring came off my finger." Monday was a particularly cold October day—somewhere in the low 50's—and the ring must have just slipped off my finger without me noticing. I retraced all my steps over the last few days, both at work and at home. This was the proverbial needle in the haystack. Since I had no idea when it fell off, I really had no idea where to look. This afternoon while at work, I received a call from home. I answered and heard my wife say "tell daddy." All at the same time, my three girls said "we found your ring." Actually, my wife had found it. Yes, she found it somewhere in the middle of are yard in the grass. When I got home on Monday, I immediately started throwing the football around with my boys. It must have fell off. I was simply nauseated for days thinking that I lost the ring that had such sentimental value.

One more week of rest and stretching before I get out there for a run.

Motivation, Motherhood and Massage

Motherhood: When my wife and I had our first child, we inherited a much greater appreciation of just how difficult a job our parents had raising us (and our siblings) into seemingly well-adjusted adults. I mean, really if you think about it, it is amazing that any of us made it past puberty. The way-back of the family "station dragon" would often serve multiple functions as play, sleep and picnic areas. Car seats? Thank goodness they were invented—they save a lot of lives. I do not ever recall any of my friends wearing bicycle helmets thirty years ago, yet we will not let our kids get anywhere near their bikes unless they are wearing one. Yet, despite all that could have gone wrong, I remain relatively unscathed, despite a few stitches I received on my hand from accidentally running into a rear view mirror on my bicycle when I was six. Even a helmet would not have prevented that hospital excursion.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Well, I flew solo today while my wife left early in the morning for a dance rehearsal and afternoon performance. She came home just before 5:00 to a relatively calm house—thank goodness for Legos! Minutes later I was outside with all five kids while she started preparing dinner. I am not even going to pretend that it was simple taking care of all the kids. I am not one of those guys that would ever dare use the "I would love to stay at home all day with the kids instead of going to work" line. That is true, but only if my wife was home with me to help. I barely know where to look to find most things when my wife is not home.

It is not the first time I have flown solo, nor will it be the last. In fact, it will probably become more frequent as my wife is starting to dance professionally again and it is very difficult to find an affordable, competent sitter for five children. All I can say is that I have great respect for my wife and mothers everywhere for the amazing job they do. I took my children to the Y yesterday morning. I got everyone dressed, prepared all their drinks and snacks and brought the diaper bag for the baby. Of course, once I got there I realized I forgot my suit for my swim workout. It seems to be a recurring problem whenever I am taking care of the children for any prolonged period of time. I simply lose my mind. Changing out my pajamas and showering is not at the top of my "to do" list. Keeping my children out of an emergency room until my wife comes home becomes my number one priority.

I liken meals to the job of an air traffic controller. Managing portions, drinks and trying to avoid meltdowns for whatever reason is only part of the mealtime dynamic. I find myself scarfing down food as quickly as possible to meet the needs of my children—yet my wife somehow manages to do this day in and day out with relative sanity. Notice, I said "relative sanity." So mom, thanks for not following through on your many threats to send me off to live in the zoo.

Motivation: Last night I spoke to a friend of mine who is expecting her second child. She asked me how I find time to train. I told her that during the school year I wake up at 4:45 and get to the gym by 6:00 a.m. If I want to be home by dinner—which is the agreement I have with my wife—it is the only time in my day that I can do it. What motivates me is that exercising makes me feel good the rest of the day. I have more energy and am more alert. My psyche is great because I know I already accomplished a tough morning swim (any swim at 6:00 a.m. is tough for me) and weight training workout. Not to mention, I want to go out and perform better next season in the triathlons I race. I made huge strides this year. You have to put in the time—whether your training for triathlons or writing music—to reap the rewards.

My friend also mentioned that she knows her diet is terrible. Aha! Here we go again—diet rears its ugly head. We all know when we select poor choices, but somehow rationalize them. Perhaps for her it is the fact that she has always been pretty fit. She was an athlete in high school and kept active with pilates after the birth of her first child and took the weight off quickly.

More on motivation later and how I even came to running triathlons. Everyone has a story.

Massage: My workouts last week consisted of three 1000 meter swims. Nothing to write home about, but we had a terribly rainy week here and it was impossible to get out for a bike ride. Well, not impossible, but it would have been a miserably cold and wet ride. Not good for your bike or your body. I am bumping up the numbers this week to be sure. I already swam 1200 yards this morning. I am scheduling a massage this week to try to realign and stretch out the hamstrings and knees.

Conversation With a Soprano

Social networking sights may very well turn out to be the downfall of western civilization, but in the meantime, I have been able to keep in contact, or get reacquainted with some long lost friends from a very different time in my life. It is fascinating to see how people's lives have evolved.

Last night, I spoke with a friend of mine from college with whom I am starting to talk to again after nearly 15 years. Among the many things she shared is that she is currently undergoing hormone therapy to prepare for fertility treatment, as her and her husband have tried unsuccessfully for years to try to conceive naturally. I understand what and emotional psychological strain this can put on couples. My wife and I have other friends who have had to try to negotiate this within their marriages. I can not begin to imagine how exhausting it must be to deal with the scores of friends, relatives, co-workers and everyone in between asking you when you are going to start having children, unaware of the issues that you are dealing with in your personal lives. Or worse—knowing—and constantly checking to see how things are going.

She also told me that she has struggled with obesity her entire life and that her problems with her weight stem partly from poor eating habits and a perpetual love/hate relationship with exercise. I could not help to think that the latter defines me at various points throughout the year while I am training. Whenever friends who are overweight talk to me about food and exercise, I am very careful not to offer any advice unless it is clear that they are asking for it. But my friend did ask me if my family follows a specific diet. It is interesting to sit down and think about what types of food we eat.

Let me state the obvious: I am not a nutritionist, or a certified personal trainer, but someone who has spent a majority of their adult life seeking fun new ways to stay fit and expand my culinary palette to include more foods that are not only good for me (because of their antioxidant and nutritional value,) but taste good. I love food. I love eating. I admit it, I am a foodie. I am also very careful not to judge people who have unhealthy relationships with food. Two summers ago, my wife's cousin, a 19-year old college student who had been living with childhood obesity, moved in with us in an attempt to "get fit."

He was now on the verge of adulthood and a becoming a fine candidate for type 2 diabetes and heart disease. What I learned from coaching him was that he had no idea how to eat or get sufficient exercise. My wife and I had to completely reprogram his attitude about food—we performed a virtual lobotomy. When he arrived, he weighed in at 290 pounds. Over three months he took off 72 pounds by following a diet—prescribed by his hosts–and exercising regularly. More than a year out, he has kept off the weight, but still struggles from time to time with his diet and motivation to exercise. I secretly wish that I could somehow make a living teaching people how to live healthier lifestyles and help them lose weight. Training our cousin was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

So here is the family diet:

•H20, and plenty of it. Milk and juice. That is about it. Okay, sure, the grownups (if I can call myself that) imbibe in the the occasional vino and beer. After all, it was Benjamin Franklin who said "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." There is a difference between the size of juice glass we use and the one in which our cousin thought he should be drinking from. The first morning he woke up, he poured himself a gigantic 14-ounce glass of the Sunshine state's golden nectar. When my wife and I pour juice for our children, we water down the juice at a ratio of about 3:1. Juice is good, but it has A LOT of sugar in it and sugar equals calories and empty calories equal fat. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children only drink between four and six ounces of juice a day.

• NO processed foods. Zero.

• Healthy snack options for everyone. As many natural foods as possible.

• We eat balanced meals. We have plenty of vegetables for dinner We eat something green every night: peas, asparagus, artichokes, brussel sprouts, and usually have some fruit for dessert—pineapple, pomegranate, strawberries. If we are eating cake or ice cream—it is probably someone's birthday.

• Don't get me wrong—we eat pizza every once in a while, we eat cheeseburgers, we go out for ice cream. We just do not do it with great frequency—partly because of the financial consideration of taking five children out for ice cream.

Again, I am no expert, but I know that our bodies react both positively and negatively to the food we eat. Following my last triathlon of the season, I was on the road a lot running around to rehearsals and performances and I ate poorly. I tried to make sensible choices; fresh subs on whole grain, salads. But there is really no substitute for preparing your own food in your own home. I felt tired—partly because of the running around—but I could feel my body react to eating "fast food" on the run all week and the lack of exercise. My wife seems to remember some literature she read concerning the link between fertility and diet and exercise. I can not help to wonder if my friend's doctor had mentioned this to her as well.

Penne or Pool

Before leaving work this evening I had to make one of the most difficult choices one is faced with; whether to go home and eat one of my favorite meals—pasta penne vodka—or take my tired body and fatigued mental status to the pool and cast away some demons. If you are like me, the choice is obvious—go home and scarf down a good half pound (I am being modest here—I have been known to inhale a pound on a good day) of pasta al dente. But I did not get to the gym last night and it is still going to be a little while for me before I can run. So, I got my sorry, tired butt to the pool and swam an efficient 1000 yards. I have no idea how long it took me, but I felt like I was motoring tonight. I also swam an efficient 1200 yards on Sunday afternoon. I have been really enjoying my swims these days. I hear a lot of athletes talk about how boring swimming can be, but I rather enjoy it. Perhaps it is because I am still so conscious of my form and I enjoy tweaking little things to make myself go faster. Six months ago it was nearly torture for me to get into the pool.

Update on the knees:

Nine days following the Finger Lakes [Olympic distance] Triathlon and I am still laying off the running. The knees feel better, but the athletic trainer said I ought to lay off the running for at least another week, while I continue to ice my knees and stretch my hamstrings. So far, I have not done neither. I would like to do a 10 mile run for Hospice coming up on 17 October and a 5K run at my local YMCA on 8 October. I am itching to run like crazy, but I do not want to come back to soon or too hard and re-injure myself.

P.S. My wife's penne vodka is ridiculous.

Flexibility of the Tin Man

I went to my scheduled appointment at our university's athletic training office to confer with the experts—and experts in training—regarding my back of the knee pain. I had no idea the place even existed. After traveling (with an escort) through mazes of dungeon-like concrete corridors and racket-ball courts—that I am convinced no one campus even knows exist—I managed to come across the athletic training office for the first time in eleven years. I am convinced that this place does not really exist, but just shows up under two full moons—appearing for a brief time— and vanishing until the lunar cycle comes full circle again.

Anyway, I was greeted by a senior Physical Therapy major named Katie who seemed really confident and gave me the run down. She asked me a bunch of questions about activities I participate in. I was way too eager to talk triathlon and marathon in great detail and had to remind myself several times that I am not trying to convert someone here, but just trying to get some insight from a qualified professional. Her teacher came by and gave me a look after her assessment as well. Katie was still a little green, but completely on the right track with her assessment. Her teacher (after a little poking around the back of my knee and some stretching exercises) said that there is a tendon that connects to my hamstring right were I am feeling my discomfort. My knee pain is not really related to my knee, but stiffness in my hamstring. My wife reminds me to stretch all the time, but I have been blessed with great big Italian legs (with hamstrings to match) and have the flexibility of the Tin Man. I was no where near 90 degrees when he tried stretching my hamstring—more like 65-75% I had been stretching quite a bit prior to the half-Ironman, but not much since. He recommended more ice, laying off for a few days and stretching, and slowly getting back into the running. Phew! He assured me that had it been an ACL or MCL issue that my knee would have let me know by being swollen the size of a grapefruit the next day.