'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 1,445 miles down and 334 miles to go

Frodo and The Ring

I continued my (virtual) “Walk to Mordor” during the past week by logging 15 more miles since my last update. I walked/jogged five miles on Sunday, five miles on Friday and five more today (Saturday). So far, I’ve logged 1,445 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 334 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 81.2 percent of the total trip.

 

In relation to Frodo’s overall journey to destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom in Mordor, I’m on the seventh day/night of the trip past Rauros Falls, which is March 2/3 on the Middle Earth calendar. I left off my last update at Mile 1430 and three miles later, at Mile 1433, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee and Gollum reach the end of the marshes as the sun begins to rise. It’s clear and cold and the mountains tower ahead across the wastelands. During the day (March 2), they hide under a “black stone” and rest throughout the “gray day.”

 

The renew their journey went it’s full dark and one mile later, at Mile 1434, they cross an area of dry peat that’s broken by flats of cracked, dry mud. The land here slopes slowly east and The Ring grows heavier as Sam’s mood darkens. Four miles later, at Mile 1438, they climb a long, shallow slope, and five miles beyond this, at Mile 1443, the gully they are following curves away north, then west back toward the marshes.

 

I’ve traveled two miles past this point, to Mile 1445, and the next significant milestone comes three miles later, at Mile 1448, where they find another hiding spot to ride out the rest of the daylight hours of March 3.

 

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 1,779 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 1,779 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.