Over a decade ago, I had stumbled across a fun, little video series about a group of guys who traveled to New Zealand to see the locations from the Lord of the Rings movies, including walking the some 140 miles between them.
This year I’m doing the same walking myself, virtually at least!
Apparently since the pandemic virtual marathons have become a thing where you do the running or walking on your own and then they just send you a medal when you’re done. Sure, I guess you could lie and claim that you finished when you really didn’t if you just wanted to pay $50 for the medal, but that’s neither here nor there because I need the exercise and I thought this might be a fun way to motivate myself!
Plus, the Lord of the Rings aspect just sounded cool and the medals they created are pretty awesome…
So for starters, just as our fearless hobbits did, I’m setting out from Hobbiton on my way to Bree (where they first met Aragorn, or Strider at that point). In total, it’s estimated at around 145 miles, for which I gave myself a goal of 90 days, thinking that if I average about a mile a day with a few longer walks along the way, I should be ok.
I didn’t take into account the daily walking around that my Fitbit tracks, so plus actual exercise might trim my time back a bit more.
It’s kind of neat how it’s linked to my Fitbit account, so I don’t have to log anything – it’ll just carry over my daily steps each day and add them to the total when it’s over!
Today was nicer than it has been outside, so Christopher and I got in our first walk of the year and what ended up being our longest walk ever at around 3.5 miles!!!
It’s a route that I used to walk Cleo on all of the time, but I haven’t done it in a while and my legs were hurting by the end of it!
Of course, the nine year-old was still filled with energy and managed to run a bunch of the way home!
Anywho, I’ll write in another post how great it’s been walking together and having a coach to keep me motivated! 😉
For now we’re just trotting along, a couple of hobbits out exploring the big world with some hand-me-down jewelry to dispose of. Eventually we want to start taking the dog with us, who should be useful for fending off Nazgûl and whatnot, given how protective he gets of our own little hobbit hole!
