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Pricing up an ironman event
I appreciate that this is a 'how long is a piece of string?' type question but I've been asked it by someone and I'd like to give them some kind of rough response. Other people have also talked about cost implications on the forum in the past week or so. So, I thought it might be just as well to do it via the forums than to sit with an excel file and miss stuff out. I want to give a very rough guess (so not start an argument about how much a wetsuit costs for example!)
To help out the athlete in question (a pirate) wants to do Outlaw and has a bike already. So, how much does it cost, roughly to do an ironman? Right through from now, so including all training costs.
Some of the figures are a bit arbitrary and I've just potluck guessed at the top end. I've started us off, please add what you think has been missed and add to the total.
Swimming
Costumes (2) - £50
Goggles (2) - £30
Wetsuit - £150
Pool/lake fees (3 swims a week, 40 weeks, £3.50/session) - £420
Cycling
Bike, helmet, shoes, gloves - owns already
Tubes, tyres, gas, servicing as required - £150
Aero bars & additionals eg profile bottles or rear mounted seat bottle - £100
Running
Shoes (assume some owned, will need 1 extra pair) - £75
Sundries
Entry fee - £225
Accommodation (based on travelodge type venue, 2 nights)- £80
Travel - £50
BTF day license - £5
Body glide (3) £30
Nutrition & energy drink (40 weeks, guess at £10 a week to balance out and to include both bike and run) - £400
Potential extras
Replacement clothing as required - £200
Physio/sports massage (based on 1 massage per month 10 @£40) - £400
Lead up half distance event (comprising £100 entry, £100 accommodation/travel) - £200
TOTAL £2565
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Comments
You've left out the kit to actually race in: trisuit, or shorts & top. I assume that 'costumes' listed under swimming is just something to train in in the pool?
Just to show that its not AS expensive if you've already got some kit and experience for me this year its something more like
Swimming
Costumes not needed - had one
Goggles already had
Wetsuit - 7 years old and fading rapidly.
Pool/lake fees Only swam open water once a week when season began - at £5 a time -so £60 or so
Cycling
Bike, helmet, shoes, gloves - owns already
Tubes, tyres, gas, servicing as required - dont waste money on gas - get a decent pump. Servicing should be minimal if you look after the bike. Maybe £60 on new tyres.
Aero bars & additionals eg profile bottles or rear mounted seat bottle - £35 got some new tribars for my bike at a bargain cos I use the old undersized bars.
Running
Shoes - even starting off with one pair - I've probably bought another three sets at least ? £150 ?
Sundries for Outlaw specifically
Entry fee - £225
Accommodation (based on travelodge type venue, 3 nights)- £180 for a family room prob.
Travel - £50
BTF day license - £5
Body glide (1) £10
Long necked rash vest £10 - buy this and wear under wetty and save money on bodyglide.
Nutrition & energy drink - more like cake fund for a lot of my year - get the miles in steadily. No need for fancy bars and powders until you're doing big mileages. Flapjacks or gingermen in a bento box seem to work for me. £2 a ride maybe - so 40 week = £80.
Just have water for runs and gels when I run more than 15 miles - so thats negligible....
Potential extras
Replacement clothing as required - £200 (prob more - you can never have too much kit)
Physio/sports massage never had a sports massage. I'm a wuss.
Lead up half distance event (comprising £100 entry, £100 accommodation/travel) - £200 Will prob do Bala so you need to add another £50 on for cake and coffee bills for the family.
TOTAL £1360
(still not cheap so dont tell my wife)
What about a turbo?
I only used one swimsuit and one goggles for all my first IM training.
i would think you could cut down thwe swim costs by buying a monthly plan for the pool over the winter/ spring months.........
never bought new tyres or gas....just spent a £10 on 3 new tubes for the year............
would never spend £40 on nutirion/drinks........only really needed for the long sessions.........spent atotal of about £30 this year.plus fig rolls are only 35 p a pack
only had 1 bodyglide as used lubricating gel on body/saved the body glide for the neck
only spent about 330 on replacement clothing................
so it can be done cheaper............but its not a cheap hobby
ebay is a good source to reduce some costs. lot of cycle shops sell reduced lots. I picked up a fully functioning Tacx turbo for £50... now, if only someone hadn't stolen my bike.....
Cougs - thank you! I'm completely stunned about how much money I *do* spend on swimming because I do spend £10.50 a week, each week. It soon adds up!
Nutriton - agree with both. That needs revising down. I buy what's on offer in Tesco for my nutrition (very scientific!) so it tends to be things like Ginger Bake Bars or Rice Krispie Sqaures, Wiggly Worms and Fig Rolls with Fruit Pastilles for running but I think I probably spend a bit more than £80 over the year (but less than £400).
Dave - not sure, I was opting for everything in total rather than that a person normally spends £10 a week swimming already.
Frodo - got a turbo.
Hopefully she'll post shortly, I feel a bit daft talking about her in the third person now.
ATOM - the weight of your bike would have only broken it.
I'd throw in an extra catagory in the bike section for cleaning/maintenance products. Cleaning the chain and gears can help prolong the life you'll get out of them.
I'd also include some money for other events prior to the big day. I've found sportifs this year to be very helpful in getting me out of the door for those loooong rides, you could argue that this cost is already built in as you'll be eating/drinking what they provide. I'll probably do a spring marathon (again, forces me to actually get out and train).
I wouldn't play down the nutrition bit too much to be honest. It's surprising how it all adds up!
I can't think of anything to add, other than it looks like I'm going to have to sell a kidney!
I ceratainly spent more than £30 on nutrition in the year leading up to IM Austria, I would guess a average of 3 gels a week at £1 each or about £120, plus sports drinks around 1 tub of powder per week at £4 each or another £160, Total somewhere around £280.
Build up events was a easy further £400.
Physio was about 6 visits or £240
Swim coaching / masters was another £250
In one year your going to go through a least 2 pairs of shoes £150
Bike parts, i changed 1 chain, 1 cassette and destroyed two tyres so another £150
So thats about £1470 before entry / travel / extra kit. I'm not going to say what the whole expereince cost me but it was well in excess of that
I think that's steep, Mouse, unless she's wanting to be at the pointy end.
Bin the massage
Bin the commercial warm-up event - practise transitions in your garden... everything else is training miles
Camp rather than hotel
Easily halve that nutition budget. Any old sugary tutt will do until April
Bin the Bodyglide - Can't an iron-distance athlete cope with a bit of rubber rash? And three tubs? i've had the same one for two years and I usually forget to put it on
3 OW swims a week is a bit spicey, isn't it?
Bin the fancy-dan drinking systems for the bike
Source your swimming goggles from the Lost Property bag at the gym. They always have loads of decent pairs of Predators and Aquaspheres
Buy all your clothes and accessories from Lidl or Aldi
There you go. I reckon I've saved you the neck-end of £1,200... which is enough to buy a Zipp Disk wheel (second hand) or a Power Tap hub. As somebody said - not a cheap hobby, is it? But that's probably just as well. Imagine how far down the field you'd finish if it was?
Just one point - that's all swimming not just open water - so that's 3 swims a week at £3.50 a swim (which is how much it costs to get into our local pool).
STIL - the massage and extra events were only potental extras in the first place but I think you have to have some contingencies in there for bike bits/services in case you ruin your tyre or need a new chain/cassette.
Cougs has got it down to under £1.5k but some others have added numbers back in. So maybe between £1,250 and £2k.
Cake - yes, quite. As I say, it's only a rough price up and I wanted to aim high to avoid surprises.
I think putting it on here is valuable to get other people's opinions - some people think nutrition costs are low, others higher. Same for the bike running costs.
If you commute to work to get your cycle miles in there can be a big credit the other way. My commute is 19 miles each way so every day I cycle rather than drive will save me about £10. Twice a week for 40 weeks and you have your entry fee, accomodation etc all paid for.
The costs do look high but in terms of cost per hour - work out very favourably.
Assume 6 hours a week or so and it's a bargain.
Trip to the cinema would be £20 or more depending on snacks and by training for IM you won't have time for the cinema. So you'll be ahead !
Nutrition is optional in the sense that you don't have to go for the brand name gels, drinks, bars etc. You can get by with simpler stuff just as well as others have said. The Outlaw entry this year included a big bag of gels & bars etc that was probably enough for the race anyway.
Odd & sods: rack, roof bars if you can't get your bike inside your car. Extra clothing for cycling in winter (lots of people don't normally so don't have overshoes etc). Turbo indoors sorts that out though. Similar for running, without the turbo option. Number belt (Outlaw only gives out one number which kind of forces you to use one). Socks - I get through running socks more often than shoes. Impulse buys at expos (never underestimate the power of bling the day before a race).
I found the nutition costs for gels racked up in the last couple of months. I'm going to try and make my own drinks for a better part of the training this year, but really found the gels helped once i started doing 80 mile+ rides, so would be loathe to try anything else. If you find something cheaper that works, that is brilliant though.
I haven't tallied up how much last years training and kit etc. cost....hate to think. Outlaw should be much cheaper though as i've got everything I need (other than replacing anything that breaks/wears out and nutrition) so should spend less. I'm hoping it pans out that way!!
http://onixbikesonline.com/Tacx-Cycle-Force-1-T1480-Turbo-Trainer-P1539632.aspx
PM me if your are interested.