Without a doubt, yes! If you are slow and you think the sprint will take you a good 3-4 hours, then I'd consider it, but the top people will be around an hour, and I can't imagine paying $100/hour to race. Of course I am a student and therefore poor, but even if not, it is the principle of the thing. I also refused to pay $30 for a 5k earlier this year.
Depends where you are, that's not an unusual cost here (LA area) for a race with an ocean swim.
2 of my races last year:
$81.00 for 50 minutes $102.00 for 58 minutes
Swag is nothing special, just a t-shirt, although I did place and win a Hydrotail in the raffle at one of them so that helped.
The annoying thing is that the local olys barely cost any more than the sprints but it makes sense as you need nearly as many cops, lifeguards etc. for a sprint. Forget speedwork. Speedwork is the icing on the cake and you don't have a cake yet. - MattinSF
Basically they have 9 tenants, live life to the fullest, do not turn the cheak, and embrace the 7 deadly since. - TheForge (on satanists)
That's still really expensive. I'd love to see the accounting of all the expenses for these races. I know they aren't cheap to run but the costs are getting crazy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jen
"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce
I can see it depending on where...Illinois State Police cost $220 an hour...then for me there is the Loves Park police, Winnebago County Sheriff, Boone County Sheriff, Dept of Natural Resources Police. Permits, porto-potties and on and on and... ----------------------------------------------------------
I'm paying $200 for an olympic next month, granted it's at a killer hotel on a gorgeous beach with lots of 25-29 TNT girls and they have a killer post race party and food. Okay okay so maybe the TNT girls aren't part of the equation but that $200 entry fee seemed ridiculous until I realized that to me at least the experience is worth that much money. But yeah, racing sure is getting expensive!!!
swim was tough this afternoon, water was flat and absolutely perfect. 2000m and lots of fun fish, a turtle, a few cuttle fish and lots of fun following a crazy fast pair of feet. Nice run round Diamond Head to finish it off. Got a bit chilli as it got dark, maybe 80s... yeah it's tough here in Hawaii;)