Last night as I watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with the family, I picked up another Garmin badge: Stepping Up 40K - Get 40,000 steps in one day. Naturally, it also took #2 all-time for most steps since 2013 (And again, #1 without breaking my foot). Still, I considered racking up another 10K steps, but hey, it was after 7 PM and my bedtime drew nigh: GOTTA walk tomorrow! The 40K step day ended my week for another record, 40 miles of walking activities for my Mon-Sun week.

This morning was a back day, and it felt good to my DB straight leg deadlifts. It felt like I was working a rowing machine—just vertical.

As to my cardio, my walk...well, in this Dec-Feb stint, it was the best overall pace for 3+ miles (19:30). I mean, yesterday afternoon I snagged a 17:45 from a 1.1-mile walk. My pace would have been improved if I didn't have to stop to figure out the map. Still:

1. 1 mi - 19:40
2. 1 mi - 20:03
3. 1 mi - 19:25
4. 0.5 mi - 18:19

This will improve as I drop weight. From experience, I can tell ya a 230s body is different from a 160s—but it has FAR more agility than a 330s one!

I only painted a little bit of Bartlett as I swung by the idyllic Sleepy Hollow Park and then picked up a corner street over by Yale Road Park. I do like my park-to-park days!

I added a new section on my site on the Expeditions page: High Scores as a motivating way to achieve top steps and my diet streak.

And yes, I've decided to make today my 2004 GOAT belt buckle kind of day!

It's Sunday so it's another Fat Focus Day! And here I am, past a stein of coffee replete with a stick of butter and set to charge with 6 cups of roast broth (thinking of #7 and #8)! I write as I prep for chicken broth for the days to come!

For the third day in a row, I have earned at least one Garmin badge, this time, my 4th Rise and Grind: - Record an activity between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. every day for 7 consecutive days.

I had a fantastic cardio morning. While I thought yesterday's 8-mile walk would be the event of the weekend, today's 5.67-mile path was only held back because my Garmin was down to 3% power. At 33.7 miles total, today pushed this week's mileage beyond the totals of the prior 4 weeks, with only the first week of the year's activities 35.92 to beat.

I wanted to capture more real estate for 2024's showpiece. I took a western edge of Bartlett, Montpelier/Yates, and turned the corner on Woodlawn to walk the length of Bartlett High School, a length so long that it goes beyond the posted school zone.

Initially, the high school's architecture was a callback to my time walking on the University of Memphis campus. I then began to absorb a radiation of warm feelings. I recalled the video I watched on YouTube in "Until I Fall Away".

I turned toward Stage and strolled past our first printing storefront, circa 1990. I looked into its window and could see that year. The nostalgia felt appropriate as I thought of my Dad on this 20th anniversary which led me to write Passage.

I took the historical Sycamore View back up and passed the Blackwell House that nearly compelled me to sing, "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight" and pick up a rock to hurl in its direction. But no, George Bailey walked on.

YouTube Link

This is a good day. I earned a couple more Garmin badges, the 15 hours of walking activities, Time to Walk badge and this one:

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Welcome to the Year of the Dragon, the wood variety, with the last one in 2012, of water.

I earned them both in today's 4:23 AM walk, an 8-mile painting across Bartlett. I picked up some new canvas in a couple of neighborhoods and took the circumference of East Hill. Naturally, it was in the rain, a mandatory feature of my extended walks.

And I gotta tell ya as the MMORPG druid, Thundercast, I love walking in thunder and lightning—truly, I do! With the first crack, I went from playing Chris Brown's Forever as featured on The Office to AC/DC's Thunderstruck. Indeed, "I was lightning before the thunder."

An element of this year I like is how it lines up with the leap year of 1996. Today's February 10 is a Saturday as it was in 1996. And I look back with fondness as I flip through the 1996-1997 student bullentin for the University of Memphis and its University Calendar. How I would love to be transported to Spring '97 just as I was skipping Wednesday's classes on February 26, 1997 to click-clack step into the reflecting-floor-new Wolfchase Galleria!

To date and throughout this year, I'll be listening to a LONG favorite from that 1996-1997 era, Robert Miles' Dreamland (1996), a CD I purchased for an inflated amount of cash at that mall and was prominently featured among my circle of friends.