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| The 'One Ring' melts in the fires of Mount Doom. |
After more than three
years of jogging and walking, mostly in my neighborhood, I finally finished my
(virtual) “Walk to Mordor” this week by logging the final 11 miles of the “journey.”
I walked/jogged five miles on Sunday, five more on Wednesday and the final mile
(plus four more) today (Friday). In all, I logged 1,779 total miles on this
virtual trip to Mount Doom, which I began on Jan. 1, 2015. In all, it took 440
individual jogging/walking “outings” to complete the trip.
In last Friday’s
update, I left off at Mile 1768 of Frodo Baggins’ overall journey to destroy
the One Ring at Mount Doom in Mordor. At that point in the trip, which fell on the
29th day of the trip past Rauros Falls (March 24 on the Middle Earth calendar),
Frodo and Samwise Gamgee stopped for a break a short distance from the foot of
Mount Doom. Two miles later, at Mile 1770, they stop to rest again. Here the
fumes grow worse, but there’s some wind coming out of the west.
Two miles later, at
Mile 1772, they stop to rest again, and three miles later, at Mile 1775, they
continue on to the foot of Mount Doom. Here, Sam tries to warm Frodo as he
sleeps. At this point, they wrap up their travels at the end of the day of March
24.
In “Lord of the Rings”
lore, March 25 is known as “The Day of Doom,” and as Frodo and Sam attempt to
begin their travels, Frodo falls and begins to crawl. Sam actually carries him
some at this point.
One mile later, at Mile
1776, they stop more than half way up the base of the mountain and rest. One
mile later, at Mile 1777, Sam and Frodo both crawl up the slope to Sauron’s
Road. Frodo turns to the east and sees the “Eye.” Sam carries him some more at
this point.
One mile later, at Mile
1778, Gollum attacks! Sam fights him off as Frodo goes on ahead with “The Ring.”
Half a mile later, Frodo enters the “Door to the Sammath Naur,” the fiery
chambers and workshop of Sauron, where he forged the “One Ring.” Half a mile
later, at Mile 1779, Frodo claims the Ring just as Sam finds him. Gollum
attacks again, bites the Ring from Frodo’s finger and falls into the lava. This
results in not only the end of my virtual journey, but also the fictional destruction
of the Ring and the collapse of Barad-dur and Morannon.
For those of you
reading about this virtual trip of mine 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 the late 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 mostly did) 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, now that I’m
done with this virtual journey, I’m left with the question of “what next?” I’ve
thought about this on and off for a while, I think I’m going to take a week or
so off and launch into another “virtual journey,” perhaps a virtual walk across
American or a virtual walk up the Appalachian Trail. I’m open to suggestions,
so please let me hear them.
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