'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 758 miles down and 1,041 miles to go

I continued my (virtual) “Walk to Mordor” during the past week by logging 15 more miles since my last update. I jogged/walked five miles on Sunday, five miles on Wednesday and five more miles today (Friday). So far, I’ve logged 758 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 1,041 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 42.1 percent of the total trip.

 

In relation to Frodo’s journey, I’m on the 20th day of the trip past Rivendell, which is Jan. 12 on the Middle Earth calendar. I left off my last update on Mile 743, which was one mile from the point where Frodo’s group, the Fellowship of the Ring, camped during the daylight hours of Jan. 11. The group left the camp at dusk, around 5 p.m.

 

Two miles later, they found the pat fairly smooth, and they made good time. Two miles from that point, the path became more steep and was dotted with fallen stones. Two miles from there, the path began to climb a sharp slope with a cliff on the left and a drop-off on the right. At this point, it also begins to snow as the group reaches a “shelf” at the top of the slope.

 

One mile later, the snow begins to fall more quickly, and half a mile later, the group stops briefly. The wind slackens and the snow lessens, so they start the journey again around 8 p.m.

 

Half a mile later, they reach the Redhorn Pass. The snow becomes even heavier, and the wind howls. The group decides they can go no further, so they all huddle against the south-facing cliff and some get behind Bill the Pony. They also build a fire and remain at this point until dawn on Jan. 12.

 

Jan. 12 begins with Aragorn and Boromir starting back down the path, plowing through the snow. The group follows and half a mile later they reach a great drift of snow as the clouds begin to break. Another half mile later, they find the snow getting steadily more shallow.

 

One mile later, the group finds itself back on the shelf of stone where there’s no more snow. At this point, it’s around 10:30 a.m. Two miles later, the group turns west, away from the path they took up to the Pass and the Crebain return.

 

I’ve covered four mile past this point, and the next significant milestone comes 10 miles later, at Mile 768, where the group will turn more southwest around the foothills of the Silvertine.

 

So far, I’m on track to travel the 462 miles from Rivendell to Lothlorien, which is the forest realm of the Elves, between Rivendell and Mordor, within the 2016 calendar year. To pull this off in a year’s time, I’ve got to travel at least 8.9 miles per week, that is, a little more than a mile a day. So far, so good, since I covered a total of 15 miles this week and 300 miles since the start of the calendar year. Today was the 28th Friday of the calendar year, so I’ve covered an average of 10.7 miles per week up to this point.

 

For those of you reading this for the first time, I began this “Walk to Mordor” fitness challenge on Jan. 1, 2015. 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 nine more miles next week, and I’ll include all that in my update next week.