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Mile 552.  For a brief moment, Tortoise was able to keep up with this roadrunner.  Beep, Beep!  It made him smile.  The thought of this day's walk is by Boyd Packer, set in Japan just after the close of the second World War ...

Cheerio!

Can you see the roadrunner in either picture?

Today's walk was 2.33 miles, done in 39:47 minutes at an average pace of 17:05 minutes per mile. This route had an average tortoise rating of 5.o, earned by climbing 139 feet in the 1.16 mile uphill portion.  Average elevation was 3217.

Today's weigh-in:  219.8, a 1.9 pound decrease compared with Lou's last weigh-in on July 8.

Here are the overall stats so far for 2016:

552.47 miles walked, compared with Lou's goal for this date of 538.22. 

37,459 total feet climbed so far in 2016, compared to a year-to-date goal of 33,124.  Lou hopes to climb more than the 61,316 feet he climbed in 2015 -- but in less time each day than his 1:07:04 hour per day average in 2015.  So far in 2016, Tortoise's walks have averaged 57:59 minutes each.

His average pace so far in 2016 has been 17:44.1 minutes per mile, compared with his 18:25 minute per mile pace in 2015.

Lou has walked 370 consecutive non-Sundays since his 8 missed days May 2-11, 2015. Overall he has walked on 473 of the 482 non-Sundays in 2015-16, a 98.133% consistency rating.

And now for today's walking thought  ...

"I was stationed in Osaka, Japan, when World War II closed.  The city was rubble, and the streets were littered with blocks, debris, and bomb craters.  Although most of the trees had been blasted away, some few of them still stood with shattered limbs and trunks and had the courage to send forth a few twigs with leaves.

"A tiny girl dressed in a ragged, colored kimono was busily gathering yellow sycamore leaves into a bouquet.  The little child seemed unaware of the devastation that surrounded her as she scrambled over the rubble to add new leaves to her collection.  She had found the one beauty left in her world.  Perhaps I should say she was the beautiful part of her world.  Somehow, to think of her increases my faith.  Embodied in the child was hope."

--  Boyd K. Packer, "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them", LDS General Conference, April 2012

The tortoise is smiling!