The Fellowship Goes South
My thanks to 
baylorsr who featured Urban Tapestry's song "Waiting for Frodo" in her Verse Thursday post today :).
Today seemed like a good day to retrieve and dust off the nifty LJ icon Baylor gave me last year while I was finishing off my Walk to Rivendell. I must admit that once I got to the city of the Elves I started slacking quite badly on my walking. I did some, and managed to get through the Idita-Walk Challenge back in the winter, but I wasn't keeping at it with the pace I was during my walks to Imladris.
I even chose to give over the leadership of my "Walk to Rivendell" group at Tolkien On-Line to a fellow member, being that I wasn't keeping up with marking walkers at their geographical landmarks, which wasn't fair to those people working so hard on the challenge. The board was taken over by my friend Emerlute in Nashville, who is a dedicated hiker and has been with the Tolkien On-Line Walkers from the start, so I know the board is in very good hands. It is still extraordinary to me that the board I started with one announcement and the hopes a -few- people might choose to take the walking challenge with me is still thriving after eighteen months with walkers stretched along the road from newcomers still leaving Bag End to veterans who are travelling up the Anduin and hanging out with Faramir in Ithilien (well over 1000 miles from Hobbiton).
A nod, too, togentlehobbit and sandy80461 who moderate the "Skinny Hobbit" community here on LJ where many folks, including me, are also walking the roads to Rivendell and beyond. It's always fun to see their weekly LJ post go up, showing us our mileage and giving us a walking stick resting on a rock icon for each 25 miles we walk. Thanks so much to both of them for their dedication!
Early in the summer, new to the Weight Watcher program, I deluded myself into thinking that if I stuck to the food plan I could lose steady weight without steady exercise. Sigh, nope, seems it doesn't work that way and my motivation hasn't been great for stepping up my exercise again. When I got back from all my hiking on Manitoulin Island, where I didn't eat well, but walked tons and managed to lose weight that week, anyway, the message became clear. My body responds better to exercise than to food control when it comes to me losing weight. It was time for me to get seriously back onto the roads of Middle-earth again. I never had more fun walking then when I was charting my mileage through The Shire and beyond, sharing and comparing my real-life hiking excursions with fellow Tolkien walkers and celebrating all of our milestones along the way.
So, as the prodigal daughter, I returned to my "Walk to Rivendell" board a few weeks back, though, naturally, Emerlute will continue to lead the board. I am happier at this point to participate and not have to keep track of anyone's statistics but my own. Emerlute is already looking ahead to having a second gift exchange on the board's second anniversary, which coincidentally falls on the auspicious Tolkien date of March 25.
And as of today, counting the mileage that I kept track of since leaving Bag End (there are some hikes and walking in recent months I didn't keep track of), I have traveled 798 miles, 340 miles beyond Rivendell. My next major milestone is the Gates of Caras Galadan, home of Celeborn and Galadriel in Lothlorien (920 miles).
Today on my travels, 798 miles, I have arrived at the Gates of Moria.
I have a bad feeling about this.
baylorsr who featured Urban Tapestry's song "Waiting for Frodo" in her Verse Thursday post today :).Today seemed like a good day to retrieve and dust off the nifty LJ icon Baylor gave me last year while I was finishing off my Walk to Rivendell. I must admit that once I got to the city of the Elves I started slacking quite badly on my walking. I did some, and managed to get through the Idita-Walk Challenge back in the winter, but I wasn't keeping at it with the pace I was during my walks to Imladris.
I even chose to give over the leadership of my "Walk to Rivendell" group at Tolkien On-Line to a fellow member, being that I wasn't keeping up with marking walkers at their geographical landmarks, which wasn't fair to those people working so hard on the challenge. The board was taken over by my friend Emerlute in Nashville, who is a dedicated hiker and has been with the Tolkien On-Line Walkers from the start, so I know the board is in very good hands. It is still extraordinary to me that the board I started with one announcement and the hopes a -few- people might choose to take the walking challenge with me is still thriving after eighteen months with walkers stretched along the road from newcomers still leaving Bag End to veterans who are travelling up the Anduin and hanging out with Faramir in Ithilien (well over 1000 miles from Hobbiton).
A nod, too, to
gentlehobbit and sandy80461 who moderate the "Skinny Hobbit" community here on LJ where many folks, including me, are also walking the roads to Rivendell and beyond. It's always fun to see their weekly LJ post go up, showing us our mileage and giving us a walking stick resting on a rock icon for each 25 miles we walk. Thanks so much to both of them for their dedication!Early in the summer, new to the Weight Watcher program, I deluded myself into thinking that if I stuck to the food plan I could lose steady weight without steady exercise. Sigh, nope, seems it doesn't work that way and my motivation hasn't been great for stepping up my exercise again. When I got back from all my hiking on Manitoulin Island, where I didn't eat well, but walked tons and managed to lose weight that week, anyway, the message became clear. My body responds better to exercise than to food control when it comes to me losing weight. It was time for me to get seriously back onto the roads of Middle-earth again. I never had more fun walking then when I was charting my mileage through The Shire and beyond, sharing and comparing my real-life hiking excursions with fellow Tolkien walkers and celebrating all of our milestones along the way.
So, as the prodigal daughter, I returned to my "Walk to Rivendell" board a few weeks back, though, naturally, Emerlute will continue to lead the board. I am happier at this point to participate and not have to keep track of anyone's statistics but my own. Emerlute is already looking ahead to having a second gift exchange on the board's second anniversary, which coincidentally falls on the auspicious Tolkien date of March 25.
And as of today, counting the mileage that I kept track of since leaving Bag End (there are some hikes and walking in recent months I didn't keep track of), I have traveled 798 miles, 340 miles beyond Rivendell. My next major milestone is the Gates of Caras Galadan, home of Celeborn and Galadriel in Lothlorien (920 miles).
Today on my travels, 798 miles, I have arrived at the Gates of Moria.
I have a bad feeling about this.