Marathon kit

There's something about turning thirty. I imagine this giant ominous odometer on which the units wheel goes from 9 to 0 goading the adjacent wheel to skip to the next numeral. Although I know 30 is just one more than 29, just like 29 was one more than 28, it just feels a lot more momentuous. There's suddenly more evaluations; "Is this where I wanted to be at this point in my life?" and "What next?". There is a lot of paranoia. A good indicator of that is the list I have of things I want to do before I turn thirty. Most of the things on that list are pretty cool and diverse but they all have something in common; they all reveal a fear of ageing and all of them have the theme of proving something to this youth-obsessed world. Item no. 14 was to run the half marathon. Since there's no half marathon happening in the near future, I settled for the 10k run that's happening tomorrow.

Yesterday I collected my marathon kit. Although I know I paid for more than what I got, I still can't stop getting excited about "freebies". The kit has some really useful things such as a water bottle, some biscuits and candy. But some things in that bag are bizarre. There is a packet of instant pasta. Ok, maybe pasta makes you fasta, but what's sugar-free doing there, robbing you of the carbs when you so badly need them? And most weird of all, there's a packet of chilli powder. R had the last word "I can think of 18 ways in which you can employ chilli powder to make ANYBODY run the full marathon!". Makes sense.