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Mile 742.  Lou had his semiannual visit with his oncologist today.  He was humorously told the MI-5 would be pleased, as his PSA held steady at 0.07.  Tortoise continues to be amazed that blood tests can be precise enough to detect 0.07 cells per million.  When he started down this road, post-surgery, the best report he could ever get was "less than 0.1" -- the additional digit of accuracy came in later years.

He is simply happy to have the level, whatever it is, stay the same and not increase.  And he feels good!  Now to find out what his heart doctor will have to say on October 10 ...

Wait a minute!  All you wanted to know was what is that dark picture doing here, and where did Tortoise walk today?  Well ... there was quite a rainstorm in tortoiseland today, so the walk was interesting to say the least.  Lou started by doing laps in his house up and down the stairs in the pattern established a year ago May just coming off bronchitis on day 3 of the current walking streak.

He only made it 4 laps before his sweet lady suggested taking the walk outside and under the overhanging roof.  The view you see above is of that.  After more laps of that, the rain paused long enough for Lou to walk to the school and back.  Just as he returned the rain resumed.  Tortoise finished this walk with more tiny laps under the overhang in his back yard.  

Walking thought was by Tad Callister ...

Cheerio!

Today's walk was 2.15 miles, done in 39:39 minutes at an average pace of 18:26 minutes per mile. This route had an average tortoise rating of 5.5, earned by climbing 72 feet in the 1.08 mile uphill portion. Average elevation was 3222. 

This met Tortoise's 2 mile minimum to be count this as a day walked, but was less than 5k and so he is not counting it towards his 52 Hike Challenge is what is left of the year.

Here are the overall stats so far for 2016:

742.89 miles walked, compared with Lou's goal for this date of 722.93.

Tortoise has climbed a total of 52,132 feet so far in 2016, compared to a year-to-date goal of 44,492.   Lou hopes to climb more than the 61,316 feet he climbed in 2015 -- as a way to get the 125 heart rate his doctor suggests for these walks.  So far in 2016, Tortoise's walks have averaged 59:12 minutes each, compared with his daily average of 1:07:04 hours the previous year.  He enjoys seeing what he can do in an hour and change each day!

His average pace so far in 2016 has been 18:05.3 minutes per mile, compared with his 18:25 minute per mile pace in 2015.

Lou has walked 428 consecutive non-Sundays since his 8 missed days May 2-11, 2015. overall he has walked on 531 of the 540 non-Sundays in 2015-16, a 98.333% consistency rating.

Today's walking thought was "The Book of Mormon - A Book From God", by Tad R. Callister from the October 2011 LDS General Conference.

He includes this quote from C. S. Lewis:  "I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him:  'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.'  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  ... You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God:  or else a madman or something worse. ... But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."  (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), 40-41)

The tortoise is smiling!