adventure party Walk to Mordor and Back Again in 2024

[TimovieMan]

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

- Bilbo Baggins

 

 

Walk to Mordor and Back Again (2024)

 

Whether you have been trekking to Mordor for years or just looking to get started, you are welcome to join us at anytime.

All miles/kilometers count. You decide how you want to accumulate distance. This is your adventure!

(Frodo's journey included canoeing, horseback, and eagle-back, so anything is fair game!)

 

Sign Up and Track Here:

SPREADSHEET

 

Open the spreadsheet, click on the 'Sign Up' tab at the bottom of the page, fill in all fields labeled in yellow, and begin tracking and logging your distance in the appropriate monthly tab.

 

Some links that might be helpful:

Nerd Fitness Post on Walking

Eowyn Challenge - an in-depth description of each stage of the trip.

 

P.S.: Spezzy (who I stole this post from) also made a template of the spreadsheet for future years but also in case anyone wanted to copy and use on their own or for groups outside of the forums. You can find it here - just go to File --> Make a Copy

[Heidi]

Here to continue the adventure!

[TimovieMan]

1 hour ago, Heidi said:

Here to continue the adventure!

Since I like that gif better than the one we originally had in the first post, I'm totally stealing it... 😁

 

 

 

I finished 2023 with 1223.32 km (760.14 mi) on the counter.

 

That puts me on the path to Lothlórien. The passage south was watched by crebain, so we had to take the Pass of Caradhras. But the mountain defeated us...

 

 

 

The fellowship then turned back to go to Moria instead. We've reached a shelf of stone - no more snow - and turned west, away from the path we took up the Pass...

[Heidi]

I finished 2023 with 661.26 miles, meaning I am also on my way to Lothlorien, though not as far along as @TimovieMan. Currently, in both my world and on my portion of the journey, it remains grey, chilly and cold, and we camp during the day. 

 

I'm tempted to try to sprint the 100 miles to catch up to Tim, but my inner Hobbit is reluctant to leave vacation mode, preferring to huddle under blankets and think cozy thoughts of toast and tea.

[Avistew]

I'm in again! 

I finised 2023 with 1570.99km, leaving Lothlorien early in December. However I hurt my knee climbing and had a slower December than I thought I would. Still, my knee is completely better and I started 2024 strong, beating 20km in a day on the 2th, which is now my new record of most walked in one day!

Note that I sometimes ride my bike and also count it in the sheet, so not all of my distance is walked, but yesterday was walked only, and I'm very happy with that. It's 12.43 in miles so not nearly as round a number

I don't want to be too ambitious for 2024 because that usually comes back to bite me in the butt, so I'm not going to set a goal and we'll see where it leads us!

Excited to continue this journey with y'all

[Darciana]

I'm in again even if I go months without updating - I just had to input half of October, all of November, and all of December to get my mileage to start off this year with.. oops!

 

I'm at 286.18mi and, hopefully, moving steadily onward!

[Ranger Hal]

Well, I've been going at this more than four years and at some point last year, I made it to Mordor, so I'm on my way back. Safe travels, y'all!

[Kalitraz]

If you want to walk fast, walk alone. To walk far, walk together. Here to walk along together with this fellowship! To Mordor and back again!

 

I'm only at just over 300mi,  about 2/3 of the way to Rivendell.

[AverageFish]

I started this once before ages ago. Time to give it another go.

[Asha Phoenix]

I finished 2023 with 570.38 miles. On my way to Lothlorien as well.

[Heidi]

211 miles past Rivendell, the land is falling steeply, and we’re heading southeast into the valley.

[Heidi]

I'm 229 miles past Rivendell. 

My spirits have sagged a bit on this leg of the journey, but slow and steady marks the way. 

The weather has turned less brutal and I'm considering putting on my trainers for the first time in months.

Begin climb up north side of Hollin Ridge.

[Avistew]

It snowed some in January here, and there were days I barely walked. I also basically didn't ride my bike at all. As a result I feel "behind" but I need to remember every step taken is better than not taking that step. Still, I'm walking in part for weight management and between the holidays, winter food (very heavy on cheese) and walking/biking less, I've regained weight. I'm now at 10kgs to lose in order to reach my goal weight, and that's with losing more fat than that et regaining muscle. So I need to be more active!
I also want to encourage everyone to keep going, I'm really happy we're doing this together even if we're not physically together. Seeing the other names and data is great! I'm terrible at converting miles, even though I know each one of your miles is more than one and a half of my kilometres (so your numbers mean more than mine), but since I also don't know your life and habits and so on it doesn't matter, I don't pay attention to the numbers, seeing that there are numbers at all makes me want to push myself. So thanks to all of you and let's continue our adventure, apart but together nonetheless!

One month done, eleven to go this year

[TimovieMan]

Another milestone on the road to Mordor:

 

Reached the doors of Moria. Released Bill. Got attacked by the Watcher in the Water. We must now face the long dark of Moria...

 

 

[Heidi]

Milestone: Warg Attack

 

 

Having survived this means I’m less than a thousand miles from Mordor.

 

My daily average pace has continued to rise steadily after hitting a low point in January.

If I were to average 3 miles a day, I’d get to Mordor around the end of the year.

My on-purpose walking has increased, and now that I have an Oculus, I am finding myself doing workouts on purpose as well.

Might even start to close the 20 mile gap between me and @TimovieMan and the doors of Moria.

[Heidi]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:10 AM, Avistew said:

seeing that there are numbers at all makes me want to push myself. So thanks to all of you and let's continue our adventure, apart but together nonetheless!

I feel the same way as @Avistew. 

I especially like when we note our “milestones,” and have started creating a mental map of where we are along the way.

On 2/12/2024 at 3:07 PM, TimovieMan said:

Another milestone on the road to Mordor:

 

If anyone knows a “dashboard and map” nerd, I’d love to be able to visually represent our “locations” based on the spreadsheet.  

 

[Heidi]

I have gone through the Mines of Moria and managed to survive yet another attack.

I’ve stopped for a rest and bit of a meal, and currently, I can hear Gollum-noises nearby.

344 miles since Rivendell, with 117 to go before reaching Lothlórien.

I’ve picked up the pace in the last month, and especially in the last fortnight, and am hoping to keep the stride.

[Leigh]

Question!

 

When it says distance traveled before 2024 sign-up, does that mean how much I've walked this year before I signed up? or how far I got in the last challenge, which for me is zero, since I've never done this before?

 

 

[TimovieMan]

5 minutes ago, Leigh said:

Question!

 

When it says distance traveled before 2024 sign-up, does that mean how much I've walked this year before I signed up? or how far I got in the last challenge, which for me is zero, since I've never done this before?

Since walking to Mordor will take more than a year for most, the "traveled before this year's sign-up" basically means "how much had you travelled on the road to Mordor during last year's sign-up?".

If you're just starting your journey, then it's zero.

 

We launch a new spreadsheet every year. That field is just so participants don't lose the previous year's progress...

[Leigh]

Thanks! I figured as much but considering I actually walked there and back again last year just looking at my Fitbit data I wanted to be sure. 😄

[Darciana]

Been awhile. Had to go pull up my Fitbit data and sort through it since I retired my Fitbit and moved to a Galaxy Watch.

It's been rainy and busy here so my walks have been less frequent and shorter. I'm hoping to get back to evening walks with the dogs while it is still cool enough and I'll aim to update the tracker at least once every month

[Ranger Hal]

Looks like someone accidentally overwrote a handful of the mileage entries on February 15 with dates which blows up the distance traveled and distance to Mordor calcs (45,000 miles traveled just doesn't make sense). I went ahead and deleted the bad data, but if you had miles on February 15, you will have to go add them back if you want your February distances to be accurate. 

 

My best guess is that this would affect @Asha Phoenix, Kate Pba, Gamer Mom, and MapleBlossom (couldn't figure out how to tag those last three; maybe the names in the spreadsheet don't match their names here).

 

@sting4780, @Kalitraz, @AverageFish, your February 15 data was also bad, but since you didn't have any other February data in the spreadsheet, my deleting it probably doesn't affect your totals.

[TimovieMan]

@Ranger Hal, I can see in the version history what the previous values were, so I restored them.

 

[Ranger Hal]

11 minutes ago, TimovieMan said:

I can see in the version history what the previous values were, so I restored them.

Nice! With so many people able to edit it, I didn't know if there was a way to look back at that sort of thing.

[Darciana]

1 hour ago, Ranger Hal said:

Nice! With so many people able to edit it, I didn't know if there was a way to look back at that sort of thing.

I saw that when I put in my data it popped up as a date. I wanted to update the other's but it came up with some crazy number for mine (which I obviously knew how to fix). Thanks for posting about it, I got distracted and completely blanked!