'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 909 miles down and 890 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 Saturday, five more miles on Wednesday and five more miles yesterday (Friday). So far, I’ve logged 909 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 890 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 50.5 percent of the total trip.

 

In relation to Frodo’s journey, I’m on the 25th day of the trip past Rivendell, which is Jan. 17 on the Middle Earth calendar. I left off my last update on Mile 894, which was six miles from the start of the day’s travels for Frodo’s group, the Fellowship of the Ring. The group, being led blindfolded by a band of elves of Lothlorien, continued along a path for 12 more miles to the next significant milestone, Mile 906.

 

The group arrives at this point around noon, and they find themselves in a clearing, where they meet a company of elves and have their blindfolds removed. They climb to the top of the hill of Cerin Amroth, where they spent about two hours. I’ve covered three more miles past this point, to Mile 909. The next significant milestone, Mile 914, comes five miles later where the elves light lanterns around 5:30 p.m.

 

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 451 miles since the start of the calendar year. Yesterday was the 39th Friday of the calendar year, so I’ve covered an average of 11.6 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.