a new expensive hobby

I guess I thought photography wasn't draining my bank account fast enough so I picked up another, more athletic hobby: triathlons. I've always wanted to do one since I got out of college sports and this summer I began training for my first race.

Triathlons are multisport races in which you swim, bike, and run, in that order. It takes hours and hours of training per week in all three disciplines and, like most hobbys, gets expensive. You always want to best running shoes, better components for your bike, gadgets, clothes, etc. Not to mention that you actually have to pay to enter these races. Some of the longer ones are several hundred dollars just to race. And I won't win. Ever.

My first race was actually a duathlon, which is only running and biking. The event I did was a 2 mile run, followed by a 14 mile bike, followed by another 3 mile run. I wasn't able to train for it as much as I'd liked but was able to put in a strong effort and did reasonably well for my first race. My times were decent in all three parts and I finished 8th in my age group out of about 20 competitors. Not too bad considering I had trained less than most. So I decided to keep going and buy more stuff and pay more entry fees....

Crap.