16-58

Mile 146.  Here's a 6 pm view of Tortoise's favorite hill these days.  Nice clouds in the background!  This was a near repeat of yesterday's walk, with a little addition through the Dairy Queen parking lot at the very end.  (That's the bottom loop on the map that comes a little later in this post, along with some more pictures, and some tweaking of this year's goals.  The changes in goals and goal reporting is what gave today's post the label #2016Commentary along with the more usual ones for 5 tortoise walk, the county, etc.  Lou is interested in your comments on this).  The walking thought was by Terence Vinson ...

Cheerio!

Today's walk was 3.70 miles and had a 4.9 tortoise rating earned by climbing 220 feet in the 1.85 mile uphill portion. Average elevation was 3285.  This walk burned 605 calories in 58:23 minutes, a pace of 15:47 minutes per mile.   It was Lou's sixteenth 5k walk of 2016.

Here are the overall stats so far for 2016:

146.02 miles walked, compared with Lou's goal for this date of 159.24 miles.  

11,090 total feet climbed so far in 2016, compared to a year-to-date goal of 9,800. Lou hopes to climb more than the 61,316 feet he climbed in 2015 -- but in 16 minutes less each day than his 1:07:04 hour average in 2015.  So far in 2016 Tortoise's walks have averaged 47:21 minutes each.

His average pace so far in 2016 has been 16:13 minutes per mile, slightly more tortoise like than his goal of 16:05 minutes per mile, but a noticeable difference from his 18:25 minute per mile pace in 2015.

Lou has walked 251 consecutive non-Sundays since his 8 missed days May 2-11, Overall he has walked on 354 of the 363 non-Sundays in 2015-16, a 97.52% 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 ...

"In Life of Pi, the fictional book by Yann Martel, he hero voices his feelings about Christ:  'I couldn't get Him out of my head.  Still can't.  I spent three solid days thinking about Him.  The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him.  And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him'

"That's exactly how I feel about the Savior.  He is always near, especially in sacred places and in times of need; and sometimes, when I least expect, I feel almost like He taps me on the shoulder to let me know He loves me.  I can return that love in my own imperfect way by giving Him my heart (see D&C 64:22, 34)."

-- Terence M. Vinson, "Drawing Closer to God", October 2013 LDS General Conference

The tortoise is smiling!