Typical running shoes are about $100/pair. In some cases, more like $125 or even $150. Not infrequently, you can find them on sale, but that's the ballpark for the regular price.

Also, it's not uncommon for a runner to spend $50 per pair of shorts and $30 on a shirt, and you need about 5 of each if you train for a marathon because you're going to be running 5 days a week. Not to mention socks. Many if not most runners these days also have a GPS watch, and those usually go for $200 for a basic model.

And then of course, a lot of runners travel to other cities to run marathons. So you might spend $250 on airfare and another $250 on staying in a hotel the night before and after the race. Of course, the race itself charges a fee (lots of logistics to close 26.2 miles of road, time people, provide food, etc.), which is typically around $100 to $150.

So spending an extra $150 on a pair of shoes for the race isn't really going to radically alter the total budget.

"Amateur runners" is an extremely broad collection of people. Everyone from someone training for their first charity 5K to those who run multiple marathons a year can fall into this category.

Some amateur runners definitely spend $250 on shoes, either because they have so much money that $250 is basically the same as $70 to them or because they are very serious amateurs.

Runners usually have multiple pairs of running shoes. The foam compresses from running so if you run every day, and you use the same shoe, the foam does not rebound and you can destroy the shoe. Three pairs is usually the sweet spot. Running shoes at like $200 a pair on not uncommon, and then multiply that by 3.

Dude YES there's certainly a market for $300 shoes if someone would release them.

Suunto just released a $650 GPS watch.

Running has so few accessories - it should be a cheap sport to pursue but, a fool and their money...