has "cankles"

I am going to spare you all the pictures, because I don't really want them to be remembered or pictures easily accessed by anyone in the future.

A cankle is defined as:
an obese or otherwise swollen ankle that appears to blend in with the calf, leaving no ankle definition.

Thankfully, my cankle is currently present because of swelling.

Not so thankfully, a piece of bone is chipped of of my ankle, thus making the cankle appear.

Also, not so thankfully, the doctor said it could be a "couple of weeks" before the swelling and bruising is gone.

Thankfully, for 1 week of that time period I will be at girls camp and have to wear long pants anyway, so hopefully by the time I am ready to pull back out my summer skirts and sandals the cankles will be long gone and my very attractive legs will be back, with ankles present.

Funny the things you take for granted (like your ankles) until you don't have them anymore.

I'll post about the "cause" of the cankle when I am not so tired (or still fuming about the bike crash that "caused" it).

Honestly, just grateful that the cankle and a little chipped off bone is the extent of my injuries. Could have been much worse. . . . like my collar bone, and we all know how much I love collar bones. Seriously, I would still be crying if something had happened to my gorgeous collar bones, you can't cover those injuries up as easily.

Adventures in Logan

This post is way past due. . . and I keep forgetting to post about it until I download more pictures. At the beginning of June I rode the Little Red Riding Hood Century ride in Logan. It is an all women bike ride through 100 miles of the most beautiful area's of Cache Valley (it even stretched into Idaho). My sister Kristin came up with me and rode it as well. She was going to ride 30 miles, but decided to ride 58 instead. It was by far my best century ride. I finished it in 5 hours and 22 minutes. That is fast, even for me. It wasn't a really "hilly" ride which helped me to maintain a pretty good speed of 17.7 miles per hour (at least that is what my computer on the bike said). Not too shabby.

The one downside of the ride was that I rode alone the whole time. I thought that for sure I would find a friend to ride with and talk to for 100 miles, but no such luck. I decided that men are way nicer and more friendly to ride with than women. Weird but true.


Kristin and I stayed with my Aunt and Unlce Mark and Cyndy and we drove to Bear Lake that afternoon after the ride. It was a beautiful drive with great company and tasty food in the Bear Lake area. We had a little detour on the way home when we drove up some canyon (on purpose) and got stuck in the snow (on accident). It proved for some good laughs at least. . . . I don't have any pictures of me running down the canyon to find help in my bright orange vest that we found in the emergency supplies of the suburban. I was wearing a skirt and my aunts tennis shoes that were 2 sizes to big and an orange vest. Good thing I only ran for a mile before we found some big trucks to pull us out.
Next year I think my mom will come and ride it too. . . and maybe just maybe we can convince Cyndy to hop on a bike and ride 15 or 20 miles as well. And maybe just for fun we can drive to the spot where we got stuck just to reminisce and frolic in the snow.

spent 10 days with her favorite people in the world.

This past week and a half I spent in LA with my brother Jim and his family of fantastically high energy boys and beautiful wife Megan. We had lots of fun going to the beach, visiting the Getty Art Museum, going to the aquarium, eating frozen yogurt, taking pictures on my computer, shopping in the fashion district, walking around the temple, running, going to the zoo and just being together.

Every time I visit California I leave wondering why I don't just live there. Can anyone give me a good reason to stay in Utah, because these kids and the company of Jim and Megan on a more regular basis are enough to make me want to pack my bags (okay really it would have to be a massive U-haul truck) and go to California for good. I mean how fair is it that Megan is the only person who can't participate in the "no shirt club" that the boys have set up. I think she needs me in California for sure.

I think that if I had worn those sunglasses on the beach it would have been too much for all the passersby to resist my beauty and charm so I left that to Luke.

I think I'll go make a countdown chain to the next time I am going to drive to CA. . . . . . and I'm not going to put a lot of links into it.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."

— T.S. Eliot

In a recent conversation with someone who is trying to get to know me I was asked if I was "risky" (well actually I am not sure exactly what he asked me, but I interpreted the question to be "how conservative are you or do you live on the edge and take risks". I responded that on a scale of 1-10 I thought that I was about a 7.4 aspiring to be a 7.5. When I told my brother this he laughed at me and told me that I was more along the lines of a 2.8 and that the only thing I ever did that was risky was cut my hair short in a family full of boys who think that short hair is a spawn of the devil. My sister-in-law told me that she thought I was risky in my fashion choices (we had just spent the day in the fashion district in LA where we bought "risky" things like leggings . . .so cute, but that is a separate blog post)

So, given these conversations I have been thinking about the risks that we (I) take and where being adventurous and risky gets us.

I once had someone (a guy that was breaking up with me) use the analogy of porcelain dolls behind glass to protect them and how really are you able to love a doll that is behind glass!? Not so much lovable behind glass, but you can rest assured that the dolls won't be broken that way. Sometimes I think that we put our emotions, thoughts, hopes, dreams and feelings behind glass for safekeeping because there is much less of a chance that they will be broken that way. However, in our efforts to protect these thoughts, feelings, emotions or whatever they might be to ourselves we are also hindering others from knowing our true selves and discovering who it is that we can become and how we can shine to the best of our ability.

Safe is not always all that safe. The person who risks nothing has nothing, accomplishes nothing does nothing and is nothing. Doesn't really sound like the kind of life that I want to lead.

(Thus my desire to be at a 7.5 on my 10 point risk scale).

So, here are the pointers that I found to help me achieve my 7.5 status (I think it might even get me higher than that). . . and I am going to keep my short hair and daring fashion sense as well.

Maybe I should just start with one or two and build from there:

DON'T THINK TOO MUCH BEFORE TAKING A RISK

(this one is tricky, because my mom always taught me to think before I spoke)

WHEN YOU JUMP, JUMP BIG

(I like this one. . . if you are going to do it do it right)

IF YOU DON'T A-S-K, you won't G-E-T.

(true)

EMBRACE FAILURE AND REJECTION

(you would think I would be pretty darn good at this one at this point in my life. . . . I think I am at the acceptance stage, not so much embracing)

FOCUS LESS ON YOUR IMAGE AND MORE ON WHAT YOU WANT

(oh I know what I want, but my image is still part of that right?)

FOCUS ON FACTS, NOT ON FEELINGS

(I think that this is easier for men. Over generalization but I still think that)

PRACTICE TAKING RISKS

(starting today)

ASK YOURSELF WHAT YOU REALLY HAVE TO LOSE

(but I thought i wasn't supposed to think about it? -- contradictory)

Do you want to be safe and good, or do you want to take a chance and be great?

I want to be great. . . . . goodbye to being cautious. . . hello to being risky!

Note to my mom: my risks will include physical safety and modest clothing - promise.

HItting the Wall

I ran a 1/2 marathon a couple of weekends ago. . . no pictures since I ran it all by myself (and looked like a disaster when the race finished after pouring rain and being freezing cold), but for 1 hr and 52 minutes I did a whole lot of thinking. I am pretty sure I was the only person on the whole course who ran without a friend or an i-pod. Thus, the thinking time.

I love running because it does allow you lots of time to think and ponder and just "be"

Emotionally, physically, and spiritually. There is a power that comes in putting mind over matter and doing something physically and mentally challenging. For me it isn't just the building of muscle and lung capacity and heart beats...More so it is knowing that when it happens every day it builds and shapes me into the person that I am. Sometimes my running obsession could be a little bit on the unhealthy side (like having a nervous breakdown if I can't run), but usually I do just fine.

I found this article the other day and it rang true to me.

It is about "Running A Marathon" but it isn't just about running.

LDS.org - Ensign Article - Running Your Marathon


Runners often use the term" hitting the wall" to describe the point that they get to when racing where they are not sure that they can take one more step forward.. When your head and your body are in some sort of a disconnect and it just isn't working for you. When you begin to wonder why you even started the race in the first place. Yep, that is what "hitting the wall" is like.



I think that in my life lately I have kind of "hit the wall" and no amount of GU packs or Cliff Shot Blocks or gatorade are going to make a difference. This is something that some electrolyte replacement and a shot of carbs isn't really going to fix.

Understandably we are all at different places on our personal marathon routes and our hitting the wall may come at different times, effect us all in different ways. In that same vein the way that we handle the stress when we hit the wall is different too.

My "hitting the wall" usually comes at about mile 21.

Right now, I wonder if it is possible to be stuck at mile 21 for the rest of my life. (Mile 21 and 22 are always the hardest for me). I think it is because you know you are less than a 10k away, but you still feel like those last 4-6 miles of the race are never going to end.

Even if you have trained and done everything you can think of to be prepared, hitting the wall sometimes just happens (not in every race, thankfully). There is also the belief that I have made it over lots of walls before and crossed the finish line, so based on past experience I am sure that I will be able to again. Just takes a lot of determination.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Just read the article from the link above, and maybe some of you non-marathoners out there who think I am crazy can somehow relate through reading.