Keeping Up With Appearances

When you update your blog, Facebook, Twitter account, website, and the whole array of Social Media tools what is your intention? Many will cite their reasons as updating, informing, sharing and disseminating others. As you enthusiastically plant new content on these platforms, are there other reasons for bringing your audience up to speed?

Besides the mundane activities that we post about on Facebook or Twitter (which few close friends may read and disavow your idiosyncracies), or if you have a legion of Followers/fans (as a celebrity) which will hang onto your every word – not much fascinates us. At best, it is called ‘keeping in touch’; at its worst, it is self-indulgent and self-gratifying.

Several of my loyal readers have suggested that I update my profile picture as well as cover photograph. One professional photographer has offered to take some action shots for me, so that I can replace the existing ones. Thus, I changed the covering photograph, which was taken during last weekend’s endurance jaunt at the Half-Ironman race. I have been tagged for a large album of photographs; fortunately, this time I look more photogenic instead of fatigue and disenchantment. It’s all about the smiles and enjoying the moment – I learnt. Suffer in silence but express your deepest joys. I also removed the sponges and zipped up my tri-top as I dashed through the finishing-chute.

I wrote that endurance athletes seem to have unhealthy looks – not intentionally – and having low body-fat levels just makes us look haggard. The physical appearance of an endurance athlete is about being skinny, light-footed and, perceived as eating-all-we-want-of-what-we-love (which is not true, well, not all the time). Perception is reality to many, and perhaps, we should wear clothes one size larger? Allow the bodybuilders and narcissists the room to manoeuvre in their compression-tight clothes.

When was the last time you updated your website, blog, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts? How often do you answer e-mails in detail? Is your website static or dynamic? Do you need bells and whistles on your website to progress, or is content still king? How have you expressed yourself as a leader to your team? Did you initiate changes to your leadership style after you attended that leadership program?

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This will be a busy weekend, as I will be teaching in the Middle East - I am looking forward to it. Eight weeks to Ironman Lanzarote, so enough of mucking around! Time to get more active in my physical preparation.

I am still sore after last weekend’s 113K-triathlon challenge; I suspect it is because I have been doing less mileage with harder intensity. My running week did not exceed 40K, which was what I achieved before the Hong Kong Marathon. A day after Ironman 70.3 in Singapore, I attended Pete Jacob’s running techniques workshop with Hui Koon (who will do the Cairns Challenge); there we ran barefoot for most of the session. Yesterday, I rode for 90 minutes to flush out residual waste products in my muscles. Now, I am still stiff and sore, and I wonder if it was caused by the muscle cramps I experienced. Hopefully, my deep tissue massage will sort that out.

Kevin Siah (who missed narrowly going under-5:00) blogs about his racing weekend.

This article is about Lance’s quest for a 2:50-2:55 marathon time in an Ironman race. Alberto Salazar assists the Yellow Strong founder. Hui Koon writes about his running clinic with Pete Jacobs.