I am a person not a brand

I am a person, not a brand.

Brands need to always be perfect, always presenting the best of what they have to offer. Focused on delivering a message what ever it might be.

A person, is a sack of meat and bones with emotions. We aren’t perfect, we don’t always have one message or goal. We are conflicted with what we think we should do and what we desire to do.

A good brand is something you can glance at and know its meanings and motivations. A good person can be having a bad day and be totally out of it.

I think social media and the way we use it has changed the way we look at each other. We have to now deliver the brand of Joel, not the person. I have to show off my smiles and my accomplishments and pretend that I don’t have any failures or faults.

It has become a place for self promotion instead of self reflect. I may have 616 Facebook friends and 444 followers on Twitter. But in real life I have the love of my life my wife, one close friend and then a handful of people that I can barely call friends at this point. People that used to mean a great deal to me have moved on and become distant. That is partially my fault, I now plan out things in advance to make sure I can keep up with my training and work. I no longer have the ability to be spontaneous and just go down to the bar or burger joint. I am sure I have said no 99 times out of 100 to going out and doing something irresponsible and fun.

But I have chosen to take on these adventures, to better myself and see what the limits of my body are. A few years ago someone that was very close to me previously asked me to stop sharing so much on social media about my training and activities because they didn’t want to see it so much. So I stopped. I probably shouldn’t have but if you know me, I will go out of my way to make sure other people are happy.

To get back to the original topic. I want to present my best to people and show them that I am amazing, but really I am a human just like you. Maybe even worse, I have a little bit of lizard in me. We have faults, rough spots, hard edges and the occasional jerkiness. Some more than others.

I guess I am writing this to say, “Hi sometimes I am fragile, sometimes I am weak, sometimes I need to not be on full blast. And I understand sometimes you need the same. If you are ever having one of those days where you just don’t feel right, its OK. It really is. We aren’t robots and we aren’t jelly fish. We are human.”

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Been a while, lets recap!

Since the last post.

Feb = Lots and lots of treadybear running.

March = First day I was allowed to run outside, I did the woodlands marathon 5k. Instead of doing the marathon like I was supposed to.
BTW it was cold, raining and my leg hurt like hell. But I did it and Quix did the full marathon. The next day we got on a week long cruise! I kept my running up once we got back of the cruise so I would be ready for the 10 mile running race on March 29. Here is the link to 10/20. I was sore after the race, and slower than last year. But very glad I was able to go from no running in January to 10 mile run at the end of march. ( As a note it is the longest I have run since. I am writing this on June 30th.)

April = The start of Tri Training for the season. Although I have been swimming a ton this year, and gotten a few miles here and there on the bike. A chunk of running, I had yet to put it all together. April was the month of putting the pieces back together.  Lots of bricks, or swim bikes, a few put all 3 together. It felt good to get back into that. There was still pain in the knee and lots of icing and stretching.

May = First Tri of the year! Rookie Tri , was a disaster! To start with for my warm up run, I decided to step on a large rock twist my ankle and fall down. Same leg that was injured, I was scared. Came close to tears thinking that that was it and I wasn’t going to get to race. Thankfully when I fell down the medical van was driving by. They stopped, jumped out and gave me a once over. They said it might just be sprained and that I could race, but try not to limp or favor it.
Well that stinks, sore knee and seriously sore ankle now. But we are here they said I could race, so off I go.
Link to Garmin data here.
The race went decently well. I sighted poorly on the swim, but it was short so not a huge deal. The bike went well, I didn’t break any records, but still decent. Then the run, it was painfull, between the ankle and the leg, but I finished. I even pr’d this race by a few minutes.
The rest of May was getting ready for Cap Tex Tri on the 25th. We had some major flooding the days before, so the swim got canceled. Thats ok though, I had an amazing bike and a decent run. Sore leg and very sore ankle. It still bothers me, I might have more than sprained it, or maybe sprains take a long time to fully heal. Cap Tex Tri Garmin data here.
We finished the Cap Tex Tri and went home to order our pizza. A big storm came in about 2 hours after the race ended and flooded all of down town. Where transition was, was under feet of water. So glad the storm held off until after the race.

June: One more race until Off season! PFLUGERVILLE!

 

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