The Cost of Excellence

On Tuesday, I had a conversation with Dr. Randy Wilber, USOC sport physiologist, about my supplemental oxygen (SO2) training. For those of you who are not familiar with SO2 training, it basically involves running with an oxygen mask on to simulate sea level conditions. During a typical session Randy said I burn through about a third of a massive oxygen bottle. Each bottle costs about $150 for the US Olympic Committee to fill with the 62% oxygen compound. And that gave me the idea of this blog.

Today, I decided to sketch out the true cost of a week’s worth of training to get ready for the Olympics in pentathlon. There are a lot of little things and a few big things that go into my preparation.

Back to the SO2 training, I run on SO2 twice a week breathing in around $100 worth of expensive air. During my workouts, I am monitored by two PhDs (Randy Wilber and Alan Arata) whose combined time for the two sessions is worth around $400. Given how quickly I have to rotate my shoes, each time I run I burn though about $5 worth of shoes. Multiply that by 6 runs a week and we get $30 per week of damage to my shoes per week. During a typical run, I consume around $5 worth of sports nutrition (generously supplied by Shaklee), and my long run burns closer to $15 worth of product. So my weekly sports nutrition costs for running total about $40. This means just running training is costing about $570 per week this summer.

In fencing, I break a $180 blade about every month of routine use, or you could say about $45 per week for fencing equipment. I get three fencing lessons per week from one of the top US fencing coaches at a value of about $30 per lesson or $90 per week. That brings my fencing total to around $135 per week.

In swimming, I am coached by Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas whose coaching value is worth about $100 per week. Pool time is worth about the same, so let’s say swimming costs about $200 a week right now.

I am not riding every week, but if you averaged the cost of my Olympic prep riding over the next 7 weeks, it would be about $100 per week.

Shooting takes the cake for being by far the cheapest sport I do. I shoot about $10 worth of pellets per week.

And just when you thought we were done, we have to add in the cost of keeping me healthy. Each week, I get three hours of massage totaling $180 worth of massage. I see an Active Release therapist twice a week and his rate is $80 per visit or $160 per week. So my recovery costs about $240 per week.

Adding it all up, that is $1,255 per week between now and the Olympics. Given that I have a six day per week training cycle, that equates to about $209 per day.

So most of you probably now wonder where this money comes from. Like most Olympic athletes, I rely on support from others. Many of the above professionals donate their time, others are employed by the Olympic Committee. Because I am an Air Force Reservist, the Air Force helps by purchasing some equipment for me and paying for my travel to competitions. Sponsors help by donating their products as well. But what is leftover is up to me to fund.

A lot of resources go into preparing our Olympic Team to compete in Beijing this summer. At the risk of being too corny, just think of it this way: Cost of training for the Olympics: $200 per day, being ready to compete against the best athletes in the world: priceless. There are just some things money can’t buy…