The Economy and Your Active Lifestyle

Asking for basically only triathlon-related stuff for X-mas and my birthday (which shortly follows X-mas) Always good to get someone else to pay for it, right? For example, my sister can pitch in one race fee (like $50-60 for a sprint, which is generally what we spend on each other) and she will have my birthday gift covered. Any gear I might need, which isn't really much at all, and a few race registration fees. Luckily, I'm still only sticking to Sprints and Olys which tend to be cheaper. And I'm not in the market for a tri-bike any time soon, thankfully.

x2.  Mom asked what she could get me, and I told her to go to www.underarmour.com and go crazy.    I told her "repeat for Birthday, Father's Day, and anniversary."  I'm getting like my father-in-law, except all he wants is golf balls and cigars.  Makes it a lot easier to get gifts. 

I'm not doing the Disney marathon in January (would have been 3 years in a row) b/c was tired of dropping so much $$ after a weeklong family vacation.

Now that I've got my basic gear, I'm sticking with it longer then I would like (e.g. not upgrading to a new bike) and next year I'm skipping a bunch of out of town races and doing most everything local.

It is not so much the economy, but rather a realization that I can enjoy racing and not blow the bank like I've managed to do the past few years.  Just trying to be more responsible about money for the next few years (until Ironman time!)

I've still got my first triathlon to look forward to , so I can't comment on how the economy is affecting me on that front.  With regard to gear, I'm happy to ride what I've got, and run in my old shoes.  If it's small things like clothing or accessories, I definitely look for closeouts or other discounts, but I pretty much do that anyway.  But that brings up another point to ask ... to save a few bucks, are any of you buying more on the Internet as opposed to paying a few more dollars to support your local shop?

I will say that the only thing driving me crazy right now is the family membership we have at the YMCA ... wife and two kids under 6 years old, and I'm the only one that has ever used the membership. They (the family) won't let me change it to an individual membership, though, because, they "might" use it.  Hmmph!

One idea here regarding B-days and such, is to set up a PayPal account with a designated email address.  I have friends that do this when they want something big and know  that not one single person could possibly afford it, so they send out an email saying, "This is what I want, I can't afford it, you can't afford it, but together, *we* can afford it."  For a small contribution, your family and friends can chip in for that race/travel or new bike this year.  Just a thought. 

I'm making mine share the continuous feeder. Let'em fight it out.  Then we'll see who's REALLY hungry.

It means more races on my mountain bike instead of tri bike and I'm concidering more running races for a while.  Better then nothing...

 -Tim