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Walk to Rivendell and Beyond: There and Back Again Challenge!

Arandiel Grey Havens Dec 7 2012, 6:47am Views: 301 Walk to Rivendell and Beyond: There and Back Again Challenge! My goodness, it's Thursday! (for another quarter-hour in my time zone, anyway) Whither have your Hobbitty, Elven, Dwarvish, Wizardly or Human feet trod of late? How far? And, most important, how's the weather up there? There and Back Again Group Challenge Progress Miles covered since our last update: 354.4 Cumulative miles: 10355.89 Miles along the journey: 690.39 Miles out of Rivendell: 293.66 Move along, move along; nothing to see here, folks! Literally. We're in Mirkwood. Will be for a while. Remember 'way back when we were on page 31 for, like, three months or so? It was rainy. Now it's dark. Not that I'm complaining; it simply is what it is. And I seem to be channeling Eeyore; odd, that, one week before the Hobbit premiere. My progress: Miles covered since our last update: 16 Cumulative miles: 421 Goal: There and Back Again! Many apologies for my neglect of the Walk posts lately. My time has been full of holiday prep, sundry meetings, and my kids' needs (they both have exceptionalities that require some attention at school at times). In other words, I'm itching to walk and poor Bill the Treadmill has been more neglected than not of late. Beamer's progress: Miles covered since our last update: 11 Cumulative miles: 412 Goal: Group Challenge Dance, Beamer, dance! She has a short dance recital this Saturday (as does her brother, the tap-dancing Hobbit). Arandiel The Scoop on the Walk The TORn Walk to Rivendell thread meets right here on Main, on Thursdays. Learn about TORn's There and Back Again Challenge The Eowyn Challenge/Walk to Rivendell (and beyond) is a Middle-Earth-related fitness group that began in March 2003, and has been going on with walkers around the world ever since. TORn's Walk is open to all people and healthy types of activity. Please visit the Eowyn Challenge site, especially the main page and the Walk page, for more information. Useful links, including mileage charts compiled by the late Karen Wynn Fonstad, are on the Tools page. grammaboodawg's awesome site for Bilbo's return mileages from the Lonely Mountain to Bag End, some helpful activity conversion charts, and the Walk to Rivendell's TORn-up Postcards Notta's Super-Duper Walking-Equivalents Chart Eowyn Challenge Login Page to register miles If you use the Eowyn Challenge site to track your progress, please update your mileage via the login page, and be sure to keep a backup record, in case Warg attack, Wizard-induced blizzard, or other fell calamity causes the Shields page to crash. Walk to Rivendell: There and Back Again Challenge - getting thirteen rowdy Dwarves, one grumpy Wizard, and a beleaguered Hobbit from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain by December 2012; and the same Hobbit and Wizard back to Bag End by December 2013 Join us, Thursdays on Main!

Delrond Rohan Dec 7 2012, 1:14pm Views: 229 Jingle Jingle, Hustle Hustle! Greetings fellow walkers, runners, bikers, swimmers, treadmillers, mancavers and dehoardifiers. What a busy time we find ourselves in! I have 2 more 5k's to run before the end of the year - Jingle Bell Run and Santa Hustle. As with last year, everyone's race packet contains a Santa shirt, hat and beard. So there is literally a sea of red at the start of the race. Just because I can, I wear my blue UK Santa hat instead. I'm such a rebel. The 5 miler on Thanksgiving went well, with me beating last year's time by over 1 minute. Woo hoo. Anyway, the Christmas lights and tree are up and wired for sound. Next is my annual pilgrimage to the mall to purchase a few gifts. In and out, nobody gets hurt. I find this whole expedition nearly as fun as going to the dentist. The real fun is taking Little D to the pottery place to make his gift for Mrs. D. Speaking of Little D, his new school basketball league has started. These kids are really good for being 2nd graders. This past Monday, he had an unexpected deposit to make to the Tooth Fairy as a collision with one of his teammates in practice dislodged one of his not-anywhere-near-being-ready-to-come-out baby teeth. After taking him to the restroom to survey the damage, there was no tooth to be found. Upon returning to the court, I located said tooth on the floor. He toughed it out the rest of the practice; I know that had to realllly hurt. Well, that about wraps it up for this week in The Life of Delrond. Have a great weekend, everyone! Miles covered since my last update: 67.5 Cumulative miles: 1168.2 Goal: There and Back Again! It has been cold and rainy as we migrate to the west, following the path north of Mirkwood. About 100 more miles and we will be heading south. A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.

Alassëa Eruvande Valinor Dec 7 2012, 3:20pm Views: 200 Man Cave Pictures!! We're still putting the finishing touches on the man cave, but it's mostly finished. And by "finishing touches", I mean, "install the shower". But it was finished enough for a Thanksgiving air hockey smack down. The kids really love air hockey. Almost as much as they love video games. We also had several pool tournaments, and Little Eruvande and his cousin are shaping up to be quite the pool sharks. My brother commented on his pool-shark daughter, that she'll get free drinks for life if she keeps it up. She's blonde with big brown eyes and painfully cute. Here is the man cave before we got going. It's a rectangular room about 800 sq. feet. Here is Mr. Eruvande and a few walls framed up. Bedroom and closet in the back, bathroom on the right. Under the right window is a little kitchenette. We were able to use the old cabinets from our kitchen remodel last year. Here is Little Eruvande sanding the cabinets. Here is Mr. Eruvande working on the bathroom wall. Here are the chief laborers. You may understand why this man cave is taking forever... Here is the pool table and the guys are getting ready to play the first game. (The paint cans are on the rug to keep it from curling.) You can also see the air hockey table on the right. And check out my awesome grout work on the tile floor! Milieage since last check in: 89.5 (grouting, painting, cleaning, loading and unloading a pallet of chocolate.) Cumulative miles: 632.55 I am SMAUG! I kill when I wish! I am strong, strong, STRONG! My armor is like tenfold shields! My teeth like swords! My claws, spears! The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt! My wings, a hurricane! And my breath, death!

Alassëa Eruvande Valinor Dec 7 2012, 3:25pm Views: 194 Aww, poor Little D! But if there was blood streaming down his chin, he got lots of cool points from his buddies! I am SMAUG! I kill when I wish! I am strong, strong, STRONG! My armor is like tenfold shields! My teeth like swords! My claws, spears! The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt! My wings, a hurricane! And my breath, death!

Delrond Rohan Dec 7 2012, 3:42pm Views: 210 Dare I ask? Pallet of chocolate? Do tell. High five on the grouting, AE. All in all, it looks very nice. Still don't see any evidence of a beer-filled fridge though. A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.

Alassëa Eruvande Valinor Dec 7 2012, 4:03pm Views: 199 Well, Our cub scout pack is selling chocolate. I took delivery of it because we had the space to store it in air conditioning. So I got to unload 101 boxes off the pallet and into the man cave, then out of the man cave and into the back of my car. I made the cub scouts unload it out of my car. The fridge is the big white thing in the first picture. It was in the man cave the whole time, it just got moved around a lot. I am SMAUG! I kill when I wish! I am strong, strong, STRONG! My armor is like tenfold shields! My teeth like swords! My claws, spears! The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt! My wings, a hurricane! And my breath, death!

Delrond Rohan Dec 7 2012, 4:16pm Views: 195 And popcorn? I guess Little D's pack got hosed on the chocolate fundraiser. We only did popcorn. I think chocolate would do well, especially leading up to the holidays. On the plus side, he did sell enough to win a Super Soaker. Totally spaced the big white thing. A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.

Alassëa Eruvande Valinor Dec 7 2012, 4:23pm Views: 186 We sold popcorn too. But we don't do show-and-sell, we just take orders. Then you are only responsible for picking up and distributing what you sell. Our charter org has space to store the popcorn when it arrives, but the A/C is not kept on all the time, and well, since we are in Texas, that can make a building get hot. So that is why I got the chocolate. We start selling chocolate before Thanksgiving and go through Christmas, to maximize exposure to grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. Heck, The Little Goblin even sold a bar to the guy who delivered our pinball machine. Oh, yeah. We got a pinball machine for the man cave too. Mr. Eruvande has gone a little nuts. I am SMAUG! I kill when I wish! I am strong, strong, STRONG! My armor is like tenfold shields! My teeth like swords! My claws, spears! The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt! My wings, a hurricane! And my breath, death!

Arandiel Grey Havens Dec 7 2012, 4:37pm Views: 190 Whew - that's a lotta Holiday Shuffle! I'm glad Little D handled that tooth adventure so well; good for him! I hope your races go well; I can just picture your lone blue hat in a sea of red - Ha! Around here, my Hobbit wants to do the Jingle Bell Jog with his school running club next weekend. It'll be two miles, his first such event. I will be participating in the walking option; my knees were not made for the impact of running or jogging! Walk to Rivendell: There and Back Again Challenge - getting thirteen rowdy Dwarves, one grumpy Wizard, and a beleaguered Hobbit from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain by December 2012; and the same Hobbit and Wizard back to Bag End by December 2013 Join us, Thursdays on Main!

Arandiel Grey Havens Dec 7 2012, 4:51pm Views: 192 Now that's cool The pics are great, especially of the kids getting in on the renovating. So, once the renovating is done, do you get to log air hockey and pool-playing miles? Walk to Rivendell: There and Back Again Challenge - getting thirteen rowdy Dwarves, one grumpy Wizard, and a beleaguered Hobbit from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain by December 2012; and the same Hobbit and Wizard back to Bag End by December 2013 Join us, Thursdays on Main!

Joe-Mathews Rivendell Dec 8 2012, 1:43am Views: 186 Last week - Week 5 Miles this week: 12.35 Total miles: 79.77 Any group can have my mileage numbers. I have the pleasure of the miles! Current weight: 285.8 I’m nursing a bit of right heel injury. I took a few days off from hiking, then did 5.5 miles today. It will be fine. I don’t want it to become a chronic thing, so I’m going to sit out until next weekend. I want it to be 100% by January 1.This week's total will be very small. I've been out with the flu and I'll be busy with extra work hours through Christmas (not to mention the Hobbit premier!). Mileage will be low for a while. 'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.' ... '[Yet their seed] will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for.'

grammaboodawg Immortal Dec 9 2012, 7:18pm Views: 163 This time next week, The Hobbit will be on the BIG SCREEN!! :D Less than one week to go! OMG! I can't believe it's finally here after such a long, long road! No worries about being distracted, Arandiel :) Christmas preps and activities is a wonderful reason to keep us busy. I've reached a milestone over the past couple of weeks! Bilbo, Beorn, Gandalf and I have finally made it to Beorn's Home where we plan to ride out the rest of the winter :D However... secretly, I've taken off and am heading for my next milestone... RIVENDELL! So I've just crossed the Great River south of Beorn's and am on the Old Forest Road heading west. Thanks for keeping us on the road Arandiel :D Miles covered over the past couple of weeks: 45 Cumulated miles: 1534 Goal: #2 Unexpected Journey Individual Challenge and contributing to the Group :) Weeks to go: 1 until December 14, 2012 I really need these new films to take me back to, and not re-introduce me to, that magical world. TORn's Observations Lists Unused Scenes

grammaboodawg Immortal Dec 9 2012, 7:47pm Views: 165 Well Done! One minute record breaker?!? Wow! That's fantastic! But I'm so sorry Little D got hurt. Finding his tooth will give him closure, but what a tough little guy! Most would have left to nurse their injury... he overcame it. Golly, I wonder where he gets THAT from? ;) I really need these new films to take me back to, and not re-introduce me to, that magical world. TORn's Observations Lists Unused Scenes

grammaboodawg Immortal Dec 9 2012, 8:01pm Views: 198 *applause!* Wow! What a GREAT journey! This is fun! I know there's still a lot of work to do... but WOW! Congratulations on such great MANpower on you MAN cave! *still smiling* I really need these new films to take me back to, and not re-introduce me to, that magical world. TORn's Observations Lists Unused Scenes

grammaboodawg Immortal Dec 9 2012, 8:04pm Views: 215 Just one of those 3 things would be enough to throw your miles off... but only one of them (the premier ;) is the only one I'd rather you have to deal with. That flu is going around like mad in my area. I'm glad you're nursing the heel, though. That one will take time, fersher :) See you at the movies!!! :D I really need these new films to take me back to, and not re-introduce me to, that magical world. TORn's Observations Lists Unused Scenes