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Mile 1,016. Tortoise is home from Florida, and back to the cold. It made for a pretty picture along the Mill Creek trail, a section of the Virgin River Trail straddling St. George and Washington. For more pictures, today's walking thought by David Burton, and more, please click below to continue reading ...

Cheerio!

Today's walk was 3.48 miles, with 66 feet climbed in 55:34 minutes, giving it an average 5.9 tortoise rating. 552 calories were burned on this walk.  

My walking map provider, www.mapmyfitness.com, has changed formats recently and the maps haven't transferred to this blog as well since.  Instead of embedding the map, let's try this link and see if that works better for you to see where Lou walked today:

http://www.mapmyfitness.com/routes/view/603937890

Here are the overall stats so far for 2014:

1,016.30 miles walked, which is 101.53% of my 2014 goal.

318:27:20 hours walked, which is 101.74% of my 2014 goal (which was to walk 1 hour a day each day for 313 days)

48,751 total feet climbed 

160,995 calories burned
99.36% of the year has passed

I've walked 6 consecutive non-Sundays since my last missed day on December 23, and overall have walked on 296 of the 311 non-Sundays thus far in 2014, a 95.18% consistency rating.

The purpose of the percentages is to have a higher percentage of distance and time walked than of the year. This tells Tortoise that he is on track. Yes, this is more numbers than you are likely interested in, all Tortoise can say is he's really good at setting high goals and having them slip away because he doesn't do them every, every day.  (If you doubt this, compare Tortoise's 2013 walking record with 2014)

And now for today's walking thought, initially presented in April 1994 ...

"Perhaps the greatest obstacle to our ability to hearken courageously to the word of the Lord involves our egos, vain ambitions, and pride. It seems that the proud find it burdensome to hear and accept the instruction of God. We are told in Proverbs that 'pride goeth before destruction' (Prov. 16:18). The proud are more anxious about man’s judgment than they are of God’s judgment.

"You may remember a story about a ship’s captain who had a problem with his pride. One night at sea, this captain saw what looked like the light of another ship heading toward him. He had his signalman blink to the other ship: 'Change your course 10 degrees south.' The reply came back, 'Change your course 10 degrees north.' The ship’s captain answered: 'I am a captain. Change your course south.' To which the reply came, 'Well, I am a seaman first class. Change your course north.' This so infuriated the captain, he signaled back, 'I say change your course south. I am on a battleship!' To which the reply came back, 'And I say change your course north. I am in a lighthouse.' (adapted and used with permission, HOPE Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan).

"Like the captain, if we fail to modify our course and purge ourselves of pride, we may find ourselves shipwrecked upon the shoals of life, unable to courageously hearken to the beckonings of the Savior to 'come unto me' (Matt. 11:28)."

"To watch, listen to, or read this message in full, please visit https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/04/courage-to-hearken?lang=eng #ShareGoodness

The tortoise is smiling!