'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 1,460 miles down and 319 miles to go

Battle of Helm's Deep

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 Wednesday and five more yesterday (Friday). So far, I’ve logged 1,460 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 319 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 82.1 percent of the total trip.

 

In relation to Frodo Baggins’ overall journey to destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom in Mordor, I’m on the eighth day/night of the trip past Rauros Falls, which is March 3/4 on the Middle Earth calendar. I left off my last update on the night before at Mile 1445 and three miles later, at Mile 1448, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee and Gollum hide again during the day light hours of March 3. As dark falls, they creep forward amidst bitter, parched air. Unknown to them, the Battle of Helm’s Deep rages far to the west.

 

Two miles later, at Mile 1447, the land rises in a long slope, and Frodo’s group find themselves amid the arid moors of the Noman-lands. Two miles later, at Mile 1449, they descend a steep hill face, and four miles later, at Mile 1453, the land rises in another long, slow-climbing slope. Three miles later, at Mile 1456, they find themselves still on the moors.

 

Frodo’s group has traveled one mile past this point, to Mile 1457, and the next significant milestone, Mile 1459, comes two miles later where they descend a last hill face and reach the Desolation of the Morannon: gasping pools and mounds of slag.

 

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.