All you need is a pair of shoes right?

It’s now the end of January 2025.

The past eight weeks or so have all about consumption and dare I say it, over consumption.

From Black Friday to Christmas to Boxing Day, it’s been all about all the things.

And if you weren’t exhausted by that, the New Year came and so did all the folks on socials telling you all about their plans for a “no buy” or “low buy” year, just to make sure you really felt bad about how much crap you bought.

I like to think I’m pretty frugal and try to be as sustainable as I can. I rarely buy new clothes (yes I’m privileged to wear a uniform at work) and keep my spending on things that aren’t aligned to my values to a minimum.

I definitely subscribe more to the Green Runners philosophy than the current trend of spending insane amounts of money on a shirt from Satisfy, Bandit or Soar.

That being said, in 2024, I kept track of everything I spent on this little hobby of trail and ultra running.

According to a recent article in Runners World US, runners spent an average of $1800 Us ($2880 AU) on running related stuff in 2024.

I’ve been meticulously tracking all my spending on running and running related stuff this year.

Here’s my first disclaimer, these calculations do not include our trip to Tarawera. A lot of that trip was saved for and booked/paid for in 2023 and I wasn’t keeping good track of it.

It also doesn’t include the entire trip to Taupo in October, but don’t worry, I logged that too and I’ll do another post about how much that trip cost if folks are interested.

Not surprisingly, these are my top three running expenses for 2024.

• Shoes
• Coaching
• Race entries

Gear

You might recall me declaring I was in my shoe slut era after the company I was loyal to for so long changed my favourite shoe. This ugly ethos was only emboldened by an injury I just couldn’t seem to resolve and adding new shoes was just one part of a shotgun approach to resolve the issue.

Then there was the oddity of my feet not being the same after Tarawera.

All of a sudden none of my shoes fit properly.

I couldn’t handle a standard shoe, it had to be super plush and my feet went up half a size and didn’t come back down.

In 2024, I spent $1463 on running shoes. A total of 6 pairs.

I also got a pair I listed as “free” which I purchased with rewards vouchers and birthday money.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8bW5TqPh5e/?igsh=b2tyanA4M2lxM3hm

I also spent $560 on other running gear, namely a Garmin heart rate monitor, new strings for my running pack, a new running pack when I just couldn’t repair the old one, a hat and some socks.

Then there was the $276 I spent on my Afterglow outfit for 2024. While I wait for you to pick your jaw up off the ground, here’s the breakdown.

• Glow in the dark paint and face tattoos $40
• Sports bra $58
• Alien kit and accessories from Spotlight $48
• Singlet top $5
• Shorts and belt $105
• Batteries $20

Fuel

I made two orders from Aid Station, totalling $214. This is only sports related products. Lollies, baked goods and other supermarket snacks taken out on long runs aren’t included here.

Race entries

I ran a lot of races in 2024, eleven races from 100 miles to 5km. Not including Tarawera and Taupo, which were both purchased in 2023, I spent $774 on race entries.

My entry into Surf Coast Trail Marathon was a free volunteee entry from the year before and my Run Forrest entry was a transfer from a mate who couldn’t run it.

A two hour drive is about my limit when it comes to travelling on the morning of a race, if it’s more I’ll stay overnight.

Outside of the NZ trips, I spent $394 on accomodation for races that I was running.

Body work

I spent $183 on myotherapy or physio and $40.50 on swimming.

Coaching

Coaching was my biggest running related expense outside of big international A races for 2024. From June to December, I spent $1191 on coaching with Ali Pottinger of SquadRun or Steller Coaching.

Then there was the $287 I wasted on the gym membership I never used and the yearly $100 Strava subscription.

When you add it all up, it seems like a lot and it is, $5482.

And there are so many things I could have included but haven’t, the coffee and açai bowls after long runs with mates, the food at overnight stays, the sunscreen used every day, the dog sitter, the toll roads, the petrol, the FreeTrail or SWAP podcast subscriptions.

But when I look at this list, I’m actually quite proud of it.

I didn’t buy any new tops or tights, any impulse purchases of cute socks or accessories, anything from brands whose values I don’t align with.

My mandatory gear remained unchanged all year, except my pack that died a slow death despite my attempts to patch holes and replace the strings.

I always used discount codes or ShopBack (my referral code is 8vISdi) when I made any purchases and always put at least 24 hours, most of the time even more between my spending.

I’m quite proud of the list in my notes app of things to go back and buy that I didn’t end up buying. It also came in handy when the Black Friday sales came around but kind of eye opening to see that a few months later I didn’t actually want those things anymore. You can also use the Carted app for this and it will alert you when your items are on sale on that website.

I splurged on my two big races and I’ll do a follow up post on just how much our one week trip to the Taupo Ultramarathon actually cost. But spoiler alert, for a week, it wasn’t cheap, but I’m a big believer in spending and living in accordance with your values and I’d rather save during the year (and go to multiple supermarkets looking for the specials) and splurge when we get the opportunity to travel.

I think it’s important to be clear and transparent. It isn’t as simple as a pair of shoes and even if you had all the money in the world you might not have the time to train or the safety to run in public spaces.

I’ve also been running trails for quite a while now and already have quality gear for adventures and racing.

If I was new to the sport, this amount would be a lot more, especially given the price of quality mandatory kit. I did a post a few years back about the cost of my kit as part of a recap of running 100 miles.

Let’s see how the 100 miles at Tarawera shakes out.

Pray that I don’t succumb and grab that cute new Soar shirt or new colour wave of Tecton x3’s that I don’t actually need.