Mile 265. A second day of rain, this one steady for several hours. In this desert country, folks are thankful for every drop. About 1 pm, the steady rain became a hard downpour. At 2, it paused. Tortoise wasn't sure for how long. The forecast called for 30-40% chance of rain for the next several hours. What that means in this case is one can figure on 15 minutes here, 30 there, adding up to 2 or 3 hours over the rest of the day. But what one doesn't know is when those minutes will come. So when the 2 pm pause came, Tortoise jumped into action, parking his car on 300 West in La Verkin a little south of Center Street, then heading off on an interesting shaped loop that included about a mile of Confluence Park when the plants were especially green and the river had more water than usual. Nice! It sprinkled on him once, briefly, but other than that he timed it well. Later on he went to meetings, one of which he came out of and got rained on.
It worked out well all the way around! Today's walking though was by Donald Hallstrom ...
Cheerio!
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| A new fence. Park managers appear serious about not wanting people in the abandoned power house. |
Today's walk was 3.21 miles, done in 54:26 minutes at an average pace of 16:57 minutes per mile. This route had an average 3.5 tortoise rating earned by climbing 274 feet in the 1.00 mile uphill portion. A little piece of that mile is much more intense than the rest: 165 of those feet were climbed in 0.22 miles -- the short 14% grade segment you see in the chart above. Average elevation was 3125. This walk burned 504 calories. It was Tortoise's forty-fifth 5k walk of 2016.
Here are the overall stats so far for 2016:
265.42 miles walked, compared with Lou's goal for this date of 273.89 miles.
18,980 total feet climbed so far in 2016, compared to a year-to-date goal of 16,856. 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 50:46 minutes each.
His average pace so far in 2016 has been 16:27 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 287 consecutive non-Sundays since his 8 missed days May 2-11, Overall he has walked on 390 of the 399 non-Sundays in 2015-16, a 97.74% consistency rating.
One step at a time can lead to great things!
And now for today's walking thought ...
"When difficult things occur in our lives, what is our immediate response? Is it confusion or doubt or spiritual withdrawal? Is it a blow to our faith? Do we blame God or others for our circumstances? Or is our first response to remember who we are -- that we are children of a loving God? Is that coupled with an absolute trust that He allows some earthly suffering because He knows it will bless us, like a refiner's fire, to become like Him and to gain our eternal inheritance?"
The tortoise is smiling!
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