'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 165 miles down and 1,634 miles to go

I continued my (virtual) “Walk to Mordor” during the past week by logging only three more miles since my last update. I walked/jogged three miles on Wednesday and didn’t get any more mileage in due to a number of reasons – mainly bad weather and schedule conflicts. So far, I’ve logged 165 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 1,634 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 9.1 percent of the total trip.

 

In relation to Frodo’s journey, I’m on the tenth day of his trip. I left off on my last update on Day 9 at Mile 162 with one more mile to go before Frodo’s group ended Day 9 by camping in the eastern Chetwood. On Wednesday, I not only passed that milestone, but also logged two more additional miles. Those miles put me into Day 10, which is Oct. 2 on the Middle Earth calendar.

 

At Mile 165, Frodo’s group came out of the Chetwood. The next significant milestone will come eight miles later, at Mile 173, when the group will enter the western edge of the Midgewater Marshes.

 

For those of you reading this for the first time, I began this “Walk to Mordor” fitness challenge on Jan. 1. Using a book called “The Atlas of Middle-Earth” by Karen Wynn Fonstad, fans of “The Lord of the Rings” created this challenge by mapping out Frodo’s fictional trek to Mordor, calculating the total distance at 1,799 miles. They also used the original "Lord of the Rings" text to outline the journey, so you can follow their route by keeping up with your total mileage.

 

The folks who worked out the nuts and bolts of this virtual journey have divided it into four parts. It’s 458 miles from Hobbiton to Rivendell, 462 miles from Rivendell through Moria to Lothlorien, 389 miles from Lothlorien down the Anduin to Rauros Falls and 470 miles from Rauros to Mount Doom. (Those locations should sound very familiar to “Lord of the Rings” fans.) The hobbits averaged 18 miles a day, but if you walk (or jog, as I sometimes do) five miles a day, it’s possible to cover 1,799 miles in a year.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about the “Walk to Mordor Challenge,” I suggest you check out two Web sites, http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/07/23/walking/ and http://home.insightbb.com/~eowynchallenge/. Both of these sites provide a ton of details about the challenge, including how to get started.

 

In the end, check back next Friday for another update and to see how much closer I am to Mordor. I hope to knock out at least 10 more miles next week, and I’ll include all that in my update next week.