One of the questions I get most often is “how much did that cost?!”
After some thought, I’ve decided it’s probably not smart to divulge so much personal financial information as to put up an entire spreadsheet with every cost. But since people are so curious and possibly want to do this themselves, I’ll happily give you a little larger window into the cost of everything.
The total cost of all the registrations was $5,354.42. I estimated that it was probably an average of $100/race, which is actually a little lower than what it came out to.
In the end, I actually ran 55 because I threw in 3 extra – one because of a late start due to a daylight savings phone setting malfunction (so I ended up cutting part of the course and can’t count that as an official race), one because I got lost on the course on a small race and accidentally cut a bit out, and one because I started with Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona and thought it would be nice to end there. The following year it fell one week later, so it couldn’t be my final race. But I still did it as a “celebration race.”
Also, just for the record, I did get one comped entry and one half price entry. If you factor that in, we’re basically right at $5,500, which is what I assumed it would end up coming out to. Though, the Goofy Challenge is included in that. So, there was a fun extra full marathon I’m not taking into account in the equation of 55 half marathons.
So, that was the cost of the registrations alone. The cost of transportation outdid the cost of just the registrations. Flights alone totaled over 3/4 of what I spent on race registrations. (And I even used points for one of them!) I didn’t realize I flew so much or that it was so expensive until I looked at it for this post.
I don’t know if I waited too long in many instances here to buy my ticket, or if it cost more because I was flying in for big marathon weekends… Of course, sometimes it just cost a lot because I flew far distances. I flew all the way to the other side of the country (Florida) twice(!)
I was still surprised to see my money spend on flights was in the thousands… To go up to Seattle for the Quadzuki (4 half marathons in 4 days), it cost $513.20. Just to go to Seattle! Of course, that was flying in the day before Thanksgiving and leaving at the end of the holiday weekend. So, there you have it, I suppose.
I didn’t even believe I actually spend that until I went back and looked at the receipt. Sure enough, it truly was that expensive.
My most expensive flight was actually for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus Half Marathon. It cost $328.60 just for the CMH > LAX part! I don’t remember why in the world that weekend was so expensive…
So, if I wondered for a moment how in the world I spent thousands of dollars on flights, it quickly became apparent when those two weekends (Seattle & Columbus) totaled over $1,000 just by themselves. Throw in two trips to Florida (from Los Angeles), an additional trip or two to the midwest/east coast, plus some trips to pretty close states (either that surround me, or that were close to states I was already in (e.g. when I flew to North Carolina from New York)) and I see how it quickly escalates to over four grand.
Whew! We’ll talk more tomorrow about which trips all in were most expensive and some costs I didn’t really think about until I did it…