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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious if there is a similar divide between individual sports and team sports. Virtually all the endurance sports discussed in this article are individual sports (with the possible exception of obstacle course races, but even then you aren't actively, directly engaged against another team like you are in sports like basketball, soccer, football, baseball, etc.)

My hypothesis is that getting an actual team (or teams) together to practice is something that is easier for people who are longer on time, shorter on money, while individual sports can be indulged by people with more money but where it is more difficult to synchronize schedules for team practice.

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I fully agree with you. I always take my running kit when travelling, and when a meeting finishes will tend to leave my bag, and go an do an hour in the local park in the light. Trying to arrange to meet one friend is hard enough, many? Near imposible. Even making it to running club once a week is <50% as it requires negotiating with wife work dealines, work travel, an so much more.

Cycling is similar - I know doctors who are avid cyclists as it works so well. When they are on call they have to be available and can't go anywhere... perfect for the turbo trainer.

Long hours are intrinsic to endurance sports, though. An avid cyclist or runner will easily spend ten hours or more training each week. By contrast, I doubt many people put that much into beer league softball or pick up basketball. (It's also not clear to me that rich people have less time than middle class or poor people.)

Rich people tend to travel a lot and have schedules which vary from week to week, which does make it hard to reliably show up for team practice. But they can do endurance sports on their own schedule.

Sorry, I realized my post was unclear/poorly worded. The primary issue is not just total time needed, but amount of time needed to synchronize schedules with other people.

More affluent people tend to have much more of their daily time scheduled, while less affluent people tend to be more flexible with their time - they can afford to just "hang out".

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