Just Like Starting Over

I transferred my gym membership from 24-Hour Fitness to Planet Fitness. No pool, but I wasn't using the pool anyway! Did that yesterday afternoon online...well, the signing up for Planet Fitness was done online; when I went to the "cancel" page on the 24-Hour Fitness website, I had to call!

So today I stopped on the way home. It really is more convenient, since PF is in a center that's right against the freeway, with easy off/easy on options, as well as easy to take the streets home. I opted for the more expensive choice, since that gives me access to all the PF facilities. Even so, it's $15 per month less than the other club.

Since I've lost track of where I was on the Walk to Rivendell, I'll just start over. And so today's (exhausting) 10 minutes on the elliptical has me traveling a whopping .52 mile! I don't think that even gets me out of Hobbiton! Baby steps; I really am starting over, and horribly out of shape. I used to be able to spend an hour on the elliptical.

I need to spend some time with a trainer to learn their machines. My first chance for that at my home club will be next Tuesday, so maybe I'll cruise by the local facility and see what their options are.

And I still managed to spend about 30 minutes out in the yard, pulling weeds.

January 2011

33.704 walking miles. 6.18 elliptical miles. 38.64 cycling miles. 78.524 total miles.

On the latest journey through Middle Earth: 88 miles past Rivendell on the road to Lothlorien.

It's Been A While

I've really been lackadaisical about posting to either of my blogs since becoming so involved in Facebook--and I'm not even playing any games there! I'm planning, this year, to be more consistent about posting to my blogs. I do know that some time during 2010 I managed to complete the mileage for The Hobbit. The source material for the distances does not include the estimated mileage for Bilbo's return to The Shire, so I just did it as an "out and back" with the same distance for the "back" as for the "out."

When I was looking over my 2010 mileage, before I realized how far I'd gone, I decided to repeat the LOTR mileage, but this time selecting a path from Rauros and following that one through to the end, and returning to The Shire without regard for which group I was with when I left Rauros. Then I'll start over again from The Shire and join a different group at Rauros, and on and on until I've done the whole trip with all the groups. This differs from my original journey in that the first time, I accompanied a group from Rauros as far as Minas Tirith, where I teleported myself back to Rauros to join another group, until I'd traveled to Minas Tirith with all of them, and then returned to The Shire. I'm starting 2011 somewhere between Rivendell and Lothlorien, on the first of the new LOTR journeys.

I've also joined the 100-Day Challenge, wherein you commit to 30 minutes daily of intentional movement. My very dear friend Melissa turned me on to this one, and she and I talked about the nature of the challenge and how to deal with rest days in a challenge like this. She's decided, and I agree, that committing to 210 minutes per week is the best way to go. That averages to 30 minutes per day and leaves room for rest days.

My mileages for 2010 are pretty pathetic:
Walking (mostly treadmill, but also what turned out to be the last Surf City 5K): 121.32
Ellipticals at the gym: 29.3
Cycling (all outdoors in 2010): 1720.13
Total: 1870.562
Trips to the gym generally included the strength-training circuit.

Puzzling

After I posted the update on my Walk to Rivendell mileage I went over to the Eowyn Challenge page to update my shields and to get the distances for The Hobbit. I decided to go ahead and do the Grey Havens leg of LOTR after I get back to Bag End. But when I went to the section for The Hobbit, I learned that they have the Bag End to Rivendell and the Rivendell to the Lonely Mountain distances posted, but nothing for the return to Bag End! Somehow I don't think Bilbo retraced his exact steps. Wonder what my chances are of hunting down a copy of the Fonstad book.

Rivendell!

Wow! Some time during the month of July I made it back to Rivendell! Next stop: home at Bag End, just 198.307 miles away. Last week I also registered for the Surf City 5K, which will be February 7, 2010.

Rivendell

I know it's been a long time since my last mileage update, so here it is: as of May 31, I was 5328.288 miles from Bag End and had left Isengard for the return trip to Bag End.

2008, Week Six Review

Not a great week, but not as bad as it might have been.
Monday, February 4: A bit sluggish today, recovering from the soggy 5K, so only some Cybex machines on the way home from work.
Tuesday, February 5: A bit less sluggish today, but still not terribly active. A full round of all the Cybex machines on the way home from work.
Wednesday, February 6: Finally starting to move around some! Home treadmill for a pretty paltry 0.6 mile; a morning bike ride for 3.3 miles, and the elliptical at the Y for 2.98 miles.
Thursday, February 7: a bit longer jaunt on the home treadmill for 0.83 mile, then a bike ride for 7.02, and a full set of Cybex machines on the way home.
Friday, February 8: I fully intended to go for some bike rides over the weekend, so I made this a rest day.
Saturday, February 9: Drove up to Yorba Regional Park, hopped on the SART (Santa Ana River Trail), and rode all the way down to Chapman Av in Orange, for 22.03 miles. That pushed me to just over 1,000 miles from Bag End. I updated my shields over at the Eowyn Challenge site.
Sunday, February 10: Yesterday on the way back to YRP from the Chapman Av turnaround point, I stopped at a rest area on the SART that's alongside the Ponda (the Honda-sponsored facility that used to be known as the Arrowhead Pond, home of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team), I met a poster (and his cycling wife) from BikeForums.net, who told me about a couple of other entry points to the SART with good parking, so today I parked over by the local fire-training facility (south of Anaheim Stadium, just off of Orangewood) and rode all the way down to Pacific Coast Hwy in Huntington Beach. That ride was 25.59 miles. My girlybits are okay, but my sitbones, which still haven't recovered from yesterday's ride, hurt like hell!! If next weekend is as gorgeous as this weekend was, I'm going to wear my bike shorts! May wear 'em anyway, and wear my track pants over 'em.

Total mileage for the week: 62.35
Total distance from Bag End: 1,026.88 Still drifting down the Anduin River on the way to Rauros.

2008, Week One Review

As I said in my earlier post, the weather's just too nasty for a real bike ride, so I did all my work today at the Y.
Monday, December 31: 0.61 on the home treadmill.
Tuesday, January 1: enough wandering around that I generously credited myself with 0.10.
Wednesday, January 2: 0.90 on the home treadmill; 1.13 on the elliptical at the Y; and an outside bike ride of 5.05.
Thursday, January 3: 0.93 on the home treadmill; 2.38 on the elliptical; and an outside bike ride of 5.35.
Friday, January 4: 1.07 on the home treadmill.
Saturday, January 5: day of rest.
Sunday, January 6: 3.2 on the Y treadmill; 7.29 pm the indoor bike.
Total mileage for the week: 28.01
The treadmill at the Y today seemed to think that a 60-minute walk was enough, so it threw me into Cooldown before I completed my 5K. I tolerated 1 minute of 2.5mph cooldown, stopped the treadmill, wrote down my mileage so far, then restarted at 3.0mph to complete the last .24 mile of the 5K. Then I let it do a cooldown. Anyway, warm-up and unintentional cooldown included, my 5K took 66 minutes. My own fault I'm not doing better than that, as for the last two Sundays I've opted for long bike rides rather than hitting the gym (or, better, doing both).
I can't get to the Walk to Rivendell site to update my shields, but I am now 86 miles away from Lothlorien.
ETA: I finally managed to get in. I've updated my shields and checked my location: I'm in the Mines of Moria, near Balin's Tomb. Sometime in the next few miles, we'll lose Gandalf to the Balrog.

A Week? Already?

Wow! Can't believe it's been so long since the last update.
Friday (11-9) was the usual cardio and weight training, continuing the "new" routine (which is now not so new). 2.92 miles.
Saturday (11-10) was my day of rest. Spent it at the LNS at the all-day Open Stitch Class, and Melissa and I walked the 1/3 or so of a mile to the restaurant and back during our lunch break. So I generously gave myself a half-mile of walking credit for the day. Not that shabby for a "day of rest."
Sunday I ended up not making it to the gym because friends invited me to lunch, then I went to run an errand and ended up having to visit two other stores to get what I needed. By then, it was too late to get to the Y. The main disadvantage to using the Y is the limited hours when you compare it with places like 24-Hour Fitness and Bally's. No walking credit for shopping.
Monday was pretty much a repeat of Friday, but with only 2.91 miles.
Tuesday (11-13) I got "lazy" and went for an hour-long bike ride to nowhere. 25 minutes at Level 7, 15 at Level 9, 5 at Level 10, 5 at Level 9, 5 at Level 7, and a 5-minute cooldown. 11.94 miles.
On Wednesday the battery in the MP3 player died and I discovered that rechargeable batteries have to be charged before use. 2.82 miles on the elliptical with the "new" routine and then the weight circuit.
Thursday I got to the gym and realized I'd forgotten to charge the batteries, so I went over to the CVS just up the block a bit and purchased a pack of batteries. Returned to the gym, got changed and ready to get to work, and found out the batteries had passed their freshness date. So it was a lonely journey, with just the machines to listen to. The same old "new" routine on the elliptical, for 2.99 miles, and then went for a walk to nowhere for the rest of the time available to me, for an additional 1.21 miles.
Total mileage from Bag End: 618.11
Mileage from Rivendell: 160.49
Current number of Shields: 24
This Saturday I meet with my trainer again, for the final week of my 12-week fitness program (and it's only taking 14!). Not sure when I get my completion certificate, or if this will be the meeting in which we establish my on-going fitness plan. After this the meetings will be quarterly. And yes, the rechargeable batteries are charging.

My Butt Aches

The so-far typical 10 minutes (plus 3 minutes cool-down) on the elliptical, then 10 minutes (again, plus 3 cool-down) on the taller stationary bike, both with the heart rate between fat-burn and cardio, then on the shorter (recumbent?) bike, I set it for "fat burn" mode for 15 minutes (plus 3 minutes cool-down). Over 9 miles closer to Rivendell, and now nearly a quarter of the way!

Tomorrow's Friday, so it's just the morning treadmill walk, but I did get up to .75 mile on this morning's walk. Also, some time tomorrow I'll need to call the Y to confirm the appointment with Terri for Saturday morning.

Oh yeah: HP1 is finally on its way to me. Some time next week I'll begin listening to that during my workouts.

I've also just checked the Shield Maidens site (but can't get logged in; they must be having server issues again), and I've left Tom Bombadil's and am entering the Barrow-Downs. I'm guessing that some time next week I'll be in Bree and will finally meet up with one of my all-time favorite characters: Aragorn.