Why Running Is Expensive (But Not The Way You Think)

December 8, 2025 | By DLake

Real Running Thoughts: The Luxury Hierarchy

Once you see this, a lot of the weird guilt and justification around running disappears.

Okay, so here’s a framework that explains a lot about running culture.

Luxury goods are interesting. They’re scarce and expensive, and they signal something to people – that you can afford to be wasteful.

Luxury isn’t about performance. It’s sometimes, and usually more than not, not about a faster time or better training. Luxury is showing you can afford to do something others might consider inefficient.

Running works the same way, and I realized there is a whole hierarchy, aka stages of luxury, in this sport. And most people don’t even know they are flexing.

So in typical Daren introspective nerdy fashion, I broke them down into four escalating stages because… why not, right?

Stage 1: Running at all is a luxury good.

Fact: Most people don’t have time. Between school, work, kids, scrolling, being social, and general life, they’re optimizing for survival.

You? You’re probably out there spending 30 minutes, an hour… four hours (yes, four hours for a marathon long run, because you have to factor in the 45 minutes of packing/logistics, driving to the start of the run across town, washing all your clothes, showering, eating three times, posting on Strava etc.), doing something that doesn’t make money, doesn’t check a box, and doesn’t produce anything tangible.

That’s a weird flex to 99% of humans on this earth. You’re signaling you have time to waste, and as we all know…

Stage 2: Racing is a bigger luxury

Now you’re doing all the things like

• Paying entry fees
• Taking time off work (ironically, the thing that makes you money!)
• Traveling to races
• And generally spending money on something that literally gets you nothing except a shirt and some pain.

Normal people think this is insane. Which is exactly the point.

Stage 3: Traveling to race is an even bigger flex

Back to traveling to races. Again, you’re flying somewhere, getting a hotel, spending a weekend – just to run? That’s luxury compounding on luxury.

You’re showing you can afford to be really inefficient with your resources and… flexing harder than a bodybuilder.

Stage 4: Ultras are the ultimate luxury good

Running 50 miles (80km) when you could run 26.2 miles (42.2km)? Running 100 miles (161km) when you could just… not?

There’s no performance justification and no efficiency argument. You’re literally choosing the most wasteful option possible.

And that’s exactly what makes it luxury.

But here is the M. Night Shyamalan

If you’re doing any level of this running luxury, you undermine it when you try to make it productive.

Like tracking every mile for optimal training, your hrv trends across weeks for perfect peaking, and obsessing over pace. This is turning your runs into data points. Don’t forget that we all signed up for the luxury so don’t turn it back into optimization.

And… sometimes the whole point is the waste.