Over the last 9 weeks, I've walked 55 hours and covered 175 miles. I've explored Alhambra, Burbank, City of Commerce, Culver City, Hollywood, Long Beach, Los Feliz, Mar Vista, Montebello, Monterey Park, North Hollywood, Pasadena, San Gabriel, San Marino, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, Signal Hill, Sun Valley, Venice and, of course, Los Angeles. I've had fun...actually, a lot of fun!!

Now that my training is done, I've taken a look back at my goals. Here's how I think I'm doing.

• To train in a healthy manner. (It is very important to me that I am still able to walk after this thing is over!!)

As far as I can tell, I'm doing just fine. Now, that's not to say I don't have some aches and pains - just that none of it seems beyond my body saying, "Dude, CHILL for a bit, why don't you!"

• To make my 40th year memorable.

Done!

• To raise money for Outward Bound. (In a perfect world, I'd LOVE to raise $40,000. For obvious reasons, it seems like the perfect number. It also feels a tad unreachable. But hey, no harm in trying!)

The fundraising is going great. My grand total to date is $4833 and, amazingly, that's with only 26 donors!! Now, obviously, the $40,000 seems a little out of reach, but I'm thrilled with the everyone's generosity! A great big thank you!!!! I've been asked by some how much to donate. Truthfully, I am grateful for ANY donation, no matter what the size! I've even managed to meet a couple of hidden goals. I've gotten donations from people who know my friends or family but not me directly and I even got a donation from a complete stranger!

• To walk 40 miles in one day.

We will see in a week! It won't be easy, but confidence is high.

• To explore and learn more about Los Angeles, from the up close and personal perspective of a walker.

Done! I have really enjoyed learning more about Greater Los Angeles. Those of us who live here, live in a great city. Now, I suppose you can argue that there is great stuff pretty much everywhere, you just need to focus on the positive. I agree with that. Well, with the possible exception of (no offense) Whittier, Alaska. Although the Prince William Sound is georgous, I found the town, well, hugely depressing. But I digress...

I've also learned a little about blogging and the Internet. What I've been most interested in is how much information I can easily find out about visitors to the blog. When I first set up the blog, I discovered I could track hits to it with various free tools. I chose Sitemeter. I was amazed at what I could track about each hit. It tracks the visitor's ISP, the location of the ISP, the operating system, the browser with version number, the screen resolution and the referring URL, among other more arcane statistics. If someone finds my blog by using a search engine, I can see what the search terms were. Apparently, people are interested in the Garden of Oz in Beachwood Canyon as I have gotten quite a few hits from that. The most hilarious hit was from someone who searched "drivers education on thursday and tuesday in Redondo Beach, CA" and found my blog. I don't think this is what they had in mind!

I've also been interested in where the hits come from. Of course I recognize many of the locations because I know who I've told about the blog. I was surprised, however, that strangers have visited from all over the world. I've gotten hits from Australia, Barbados, Brazil, England, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago...and that is just what I can remember. This map shows where the last 100 hits have come from. (The most recent 10 are in green and the last is in red.)

If any of you in the LA area are interested in walking with me or joining us at the end, email or call me. We're planning on having dinner at Il Fornaio since it is right there at the pier.

Thanks for checking in. Only one week to go!