The Eowyn Challenge

In August 2003, at the height of "Lord of the Rings" movie hype, I came across a website called the Eowyn Challenge. The challenge was to set and reach fitness goals with the support of other LOTR fans. The main event of the challenge was called the "The Walk to Rivendell", which entailed walking, running, biking, etc. for 458 miles, the equivalent of the distance from Hobbiton to Rivendell in Middle Earth. Over 5 years -- and several thousand miles -- later, I am still on the road to Rivendell, setting new goals and challenges. I began by walking, and eventually I got back into running, which I had all but abandoned in the year preceding my discovery of the Challenge. Now I've run in three 5Ks, and my current challenge is a 4-mile trail run in a few days.

I began training for this race a little over three weeks ago. At that time, I had planned for sprint workouts and long runs incorporated into my training. First the weather didn't cooperate, and then, on my first sprint workout, I hurt myself, despite a careful warm-up before the sprints. That set me back a lot. I've done a couple of 4-mile runs over the past few weeks, but my usual every-day run is only 2 miles. I'm averaging about 8-minute miles on those runs, and I hope I can hold that pace for the full 4 miles. I am going to run another 2 miles tomorrow and just walk on the next two days before the race. No matter how I do in this race, I hope to continue running consistently throughout the winter, when I usually slack off.