16-43

Mile 103.  Lou had an early dinner date with his Valentine, so he snuck in a mid-afternoon walk in crystal clear conditions and temperatures in the low 70s.  He worked up a sweat in his short sleeve shirt, a nice change of pace!  Tortoise chose to climb West Cinder Knoll on this fine day, the picture above is looking back from whence he came upon reaching the top.  Walking thought is by Henry Eyring, and you know there are more pictures where that one came from ...

Cheerio!

The view up from the point where the trail starts climbing more steeply.

The last few hundred feet kick it up another notch.

Views in other directions from the top

Wonder what this looked like when this crater was created ...

Since Tortoise would rather climb a steep hill than descend one, he took
the long, more gradual path back down.

The views are just as nice either way.

This is a day Lou is not sure he believes the slope provided by this map.
No more than a 4% grade?  Really?

Today's walk was 3.30 miles and had a 4.6 tortoise rating earned by climbing 249 feet in the 1.65 mile uphill portion.  It was Lou's seventh 5k walk of 2016.  Average elevation was 3315.  This walk burned 491 calories in 57:21 minutes, a pace of 17:23 minutes per mile.  

Here are the overall stats so far for 2016:

103.37 miles walked which is 15.13% of Lou's 2016 goal of 683 miles.  His goal for this date is 80.48 total miles.

28:06:17 hours walked which is 13.43% of the 2016 goal (which is to walk 40 minutes a day on the 314 days other than Sunday in the year).  

8,073 total feet climbed so far in 2016, compared to a year-to-date goal of 7,252. Lou hopes to climb more than the 61,316 feet he climbed in 2015 -- but in 40 or so minutes, rather than an hour daily.  (So far in 2016 Tortoise's walks have averaged 45:35 minutes each, compared with 1:07:04 hours each in 2015)

16,598 calories burned.

11.78% of the year has passed.

Lou has walked 238 consecutive non-Sundays since his 8 missed days May 2-11, Overall he has walked on 341 of the 350 non-Sundays in 2015-16, a 97.43% consistency rating.

The purpose of the percentages is to have a higher percentage of both distance and of time walked than of the year.  This tells Tortoise that he is on track.  And of course, he also wants to keep the Boredom Committee supplied with plenty of boring numbers so those good folks will be happy ...

And now for today's walking thought ...

"Our human tendency is to be impatient with the person who cannot see the truth that is so plain to us.  We must be careful that our impatience is not interpreted as condemnation or rejection.

"As prepare to give succor for the Lord ... there is a scripture to guide us.  It contains a gift we will need for our journey, wherever the Lord will send us.  The good Samaritan had that gift.  We will need it, and the Lord has told us how we can find it:

" 'Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail --

" 'But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.' " (Moroni 7:46-47 ... yes, the same Moroni who is atop our temples.  A remarkable prophet, was he.)  (Becca, I still have happy memories of the day you and I saw his statue placed atop the temple on Broadway in Manhattan)

Cheerio!