Would you spend a paycheck on a pair of running shoes?

An average pair of running shoes is $120, but what does that mean for runners in countries with lower incomes? I speak to Sajjad Hossain Snigdho of Bangladesh Runners to find out.

May 16, 2024

They say that running is the least expensive sport in the world. I’ll add: ‘unless you’re in Bangladesh.’

With the $16 minimum wage in California, you can buy a decent pair of running shoes with a day’s work. What about if it instead cost you $2,500 to buy a new pair of running shoes? Same job. Same salary.

Transport your mind, if you would, to a country where the average annual income is $3,000 - just less than 10% of that Californian minimum wage - and you might begin to realize what a luxury a brand new pair of running shoes could be. That’s exactly the case in Bangladesh. The shoes cost the same. The salary is not the same.

Nike can’t sell shoes in Bangladesh (international code: BD) at a price proportional to the salary in that country ($10??) or people in countries with higher salaries would simply buy their running shoes from there, and they’d cease to be a $30BN company. The result? People in countries like Bangladesh are stuck choosing between exorbitant prices and rock bottom options.

You can still run in a no-name shoe brand, of course, but the technology in your Pegasuses and Ultraboosts is real.

This week, I’ve spoken to Sajjad Hossain Snigdho, a runner and coach in the Bangladeshi capital city of Dhaka, and an administrator of the thriving online community, BDRunners to find out the joys and the difficulties (mainly difficulties) of running in the third most densely populated city in the world.

About Sajjad

After missing the grades to get into his first-choice subjects at college, Sajjad was accepted into the veterinary science program at Bangladesh Agricultural University in 2018. Without a passion for biology, however, he struggled, and became depressed. He turned to sports: jogging.

He soon found the Facebook community, BDRunners. He “saw different types of people running and trying to improve their times.” He was encouraged by his new online friends to sign up for a race. With no preparation and no expectations, he started at the back, but soon noticed he was passing people. He completed his first 5k race in 20 minutes, finishing 4th, but injury soon struck.

“As I already studied biology in veterinary science, I understood some basic human physiology, so I studied and researched. I found that I was doing too much training.”

That was 2019. After researching more and improving however he could on a 19-year-old student’s budget, he was running 17:30 5ks within a year. Sajjad won the Dhaka Half Marathon in 2020 in 1:20.

Sajjad acknowledges that infrastructure problems are not in his hands. His university doesn’t have a track, but almost nobody in Bangladesh does. Good nutrition is also difficult on his budget. Getting a coach is nigh on impossible.

While Bangladesh has proudly competed in every Summer Olympics since 1984, not a single medal has been won. Homegrown coaches simply can not have that pedigree. Sajjad ran a 2:42 marathon last year, but with a lack of coaching help available, there is simply no iron available to sharpen his iron.

Instead, he turned to becoming a coach himself, and nurturing the BDRunners community.

(A previous AI-generated image caused some concern among Bangladeshi nationalists. Apologies to The Flag.)

The run club that caused a revolution

Despite having over 30,000 members in its Facebook group, with anywhere from 50 to 150 posts a day, the BDRunners community is still a niche community in Bangladesh - a country of 170 million people. Moderators only allow those who are “passionate about fitness and running.”

As recently as 2018, it was “just a couple of people running and posting,” but Sajjad says that “this is the group which made the running revolution in Bangladesh.”

While in 2018 there were only a handful of running events across the country, including the BDRunners-affiliated Dhaka Half Marathon, in 2024 there are multiple events in multiple cities every weekend, with thousands coming from far and wide to attend.

“It’s growing, and within five years it will be even bigger. Now we also have a couple of international races like the Bangabhandu Dhaka Marathon. 7000 people ran that.”

Sajjad talks of the online clamor that increases within the community when a major event is coming up.

“People are waiting for the day. People are celebrating! If a race organizer wants to make an event successful and popular, they try to publish it to BDRunners. The people who are passionate about running travel up to 300 km to run a race. That's the influence BD Runners has.”

He claims that up to 50% of race participants for a major race can be from outside of that region. He talks about the real-time feedback that is posted in the group. For a country in the early stages of widespread race organization, this kind of conversation is crucial. Everyone just wants the next event to be better.

It’s like when I was well on target to run a 5k PR in 2017 and the course was measured at just 4,000m. I explained as politely as I could to the race organizer that ‘5k’ is a distance, not just a state of mind. The next year it was 5,000m. I haven’t ever got close to that 5k PR again, though… Feedback loops help - even in the USA!

The difficulties of running in Bangladesh

Traffic

Snighdo talks about the dense population in the city and the denser traffic. He talks about how the congestion means people can’t run - or even walk - in the middle of the day, and how there aren’t enough parks to run in.

Weather

Over half the year is the rainy season in Bangladesh, including the summer’s extra-heavy monsoon rain, which you certainly can’t race in. So it’s only in September through January that running events are organized.

Pollution

Last year, I wrote about Lahore, Pakistan having the world’s worst air pollution, but Dhaka is also regularly in the top 10. Running in the morning helps, but it’s not a solution.

Women

Women struggle to run alone early in the morning in Dhaka. The problem? It’s men, of course! “We are trying to solve the problem because it's a social problem. If we allow women a safe place to run, they can do better.” This isn’t a problem restricted to the subcontinent, of course. I have friends in liberal Los Angeles who frequently fall victim to catcalling, and worse.

Cricket

“In Bangladesh, cricket is popular, but running is not.” While there are cricketing superstars in Bangladesh, there are no runners gaining celebrity status. Without that status, there are no sponsors, and without that money, it’s difficult to focus on one’s craft.

Accessibility

There are no prominent home-grown running brands or specialist stores in Bangladesh, so all shoes and apparel must be purchased as imports from the USA or UK, which is expensive. The hope is that a viable local running brand will emerge within the next decade.

It’s that last one that inspired the title of this week’s post. If a shoe is $150 in the USA, the additional import taxes into Bangladesh put the price up to $200 (24,000 BDT), so not only is it an enormously larger proportion of a Bangladeshi salary (6% of the average annual salary, rather than 0.4%), but it’s more money as well.

If you’re running 35 miles or 50 km a week, you will go through five pairs of running shoes per year. Would you spend 30% of your annual income on running shoes? For me, that’s an absurd thing to consider. What’s the alternative, though?

“You can only run in a shoe for around 500 km (350 miles). Here, when people buy a shoe, they try to get as much as possible out of it. In 2019, buying a shoe was a huge thing for me as a student, and I ran around 2000 km.”

Before I learned about the deterioration of the midsole and the knock-on effects of getting injured, I ran in a pair of shoes for seven years. My body wasn’t in that great condition. I tore a hip flexor, for instance.

“Now I’m a semi professional or amateur runner, I need to buy shoes, so I need to compromise other things to buy good running shoes. I’m trying to be minimalistic. I also need a heart rate monitor, good running t-shirts or shorts. Those are all so expensive because nothing is available in Bangladesh.”

“It’s challenging for young athletes. They frequently suffer injuries - not only from shoes, but also because proper nutrition and diet is also important and that’s also expensive. That's why in Bangladesh there are not too many talented athletes who are doing well internationally.”

Another reason is money, of course. Sajjad talks about cricketers being able to earn $10,000 USD a month, while the top runners are scraping the same amount a year. There is no support from the athletics federation either.

British-Bangladeshi sprinter, Imranur Rahman in action at the 2023 World Championships.

There is one Bangladeshi runner doing it. An accountant from Sheffield, 30-year-old British-Bangladeshi, Imranur Rahman is the current 100m national record holder. He has British facilities at his disposal, of course. And can self-fund his dream.

“If you don’t have money, how can you improve in international events? Recently, one runner ran a full marathon around 2:25, and I'm sure if he gets the facilities like in the USA, they can run 2:15.”

There have been almost 40 American runners hitting the 2:10 marathon mark. Imagine the potential of a population half the size of the USA, especially when we know one Bangladeshi runner can already run a sub 2:30 race.

This could be the first Bangladeshi superstar marathoner. Imagine the difference a little investment could make.

Staying within the safe confines of capitalism, imagine the rewards of being the running company that helps unearth the first Bangladeshi Olympic medalist. Imagine the goodwill that would foster among the millions-strong diaspora around the world. People like me, with more disposable income to be harvested, perhaps. It’s a safe bet. Low-hanging fruit, even.

Things are changing, though. With the emergence of BRICS as a new economic center, it might be less surprising to read that Bangladesh’s continued economic growth is set to make them the world's 20th largest economy by 2038.

Combining that information with the forward motion of the BDRunners community, I wouldn’t bet against a company taking a chance on some runners over there, and maybe equalizing some of the economic factors. Fingers crossed we won’t have to keep imagining.

Running Sucks Haiku of the Week

First time in the wild:
A Running Sucks event? Wow!
Got the taste for it.

That’s right! The folks from UltraSignup were in L.A. for a conference, so I harnessed the power of LinkedIn to suggest we go for a run together, and we did it! Here’s proof, with the glorious Downtown Los Angeles skyline in the background.

It is the kind of activity that forced me into making another social network page to monitor, however, so go and join the Running Sucks Strava club, please! That’s where I’ll post future events, I think.