WSJ: "Fast Times for Jobless Runners"

Unemployment has its benefits, I guess. Participation in marathons is growing and times are getting faster as more people have time to train, travel and race.

The new word is "funemployment." Triathlete Zach Goldman shows you how to be funemployed:

"...Goldman, a triathlete from San Diego, describes himself as “funemployed.” Mr. Goldman, who was recently laid off from his high-paying commercial real-estate job, says he has enough time to train nearly full time and enough money saved up to travel the world racing and figuring out what he wants to do with his life–which is probably not commercial real estate. “That wasn’t all that fulfilling,” he says. “I’d like to do something more meaningful with my life,” he says—ideally in a career that will allow him to train longer hours. Mr. Goldman is currently in Israel, competing in the Maccabi Games, an international competition for Jewish athletes."

It may even be a good time to start a triathlon-related business, as Michigan entrepreneur Eva Solomon found:

Even in Michigan, where the economy has been particularly harsh, a new business promoting multisport events is holding its own. (Solomon) says she thought she was “an idiot” to leave her stable job as a grade-school teacher to start a company, EST Events, during the worst economic crisis in a generation. But she figured things like triathlons were “recession proof.”

The first event she and her business partner put on, the “She Rocks” women’s triathlon, nearly filled up, with more than 400 women participating.

“I was blown away when I got home from the race and within two hours, I was getting letters from people thanking me for asking them to pay $80 to swim, bike and run,” she says. For the company’s next event, Ms. Solomon is considering offering a discount for people who can prove they’ve been laid off in the past six months.