[William Cloud Hicklin]

I acknowledge your point about Gimli- although it is I suppose possible to imagine that mountain-bred, broad-chested Dwarves, like Sherpas and some Andean peoples, have much greater lung capacity and blood volume relative to body size than we do. I suppose when I read the books I envisioned the 'running' as being akin to the long-distance run/walk lope which Creeks and other Indians could maintain for hours and leagues, not the edge-of-endurance effort we see in competitive races.

And, again, I've done 20- 25 miles/day repeatedly in mountains with a sixty-pound pack and heavy boots. If one's objective is to keep moving for 10 or 12 hours, one sets one's pace to that level, not to 26-miles-as-fast-as-possible.

In any event, the Great Chase was *supposed* to be astonishing- wasn't Eomer duly amazed? "Wingfoot I name you." (It however bugs me that whatever Aragorn & Co did, the Orcs went farther faster, but nobody remarks on it).

Another 'goof' of Tolkien's of the same sort is his reliance on Army manuals to get marching distances right..but forgetting that Hobbits of course have a stride only about half that of fullsize humans. Frodo, Sam and Gollum must have been fair truckin' over parts of their journey!

On the 'hypocrisy' issue- I've never been very exercised over the likelihood of Plunging Steward, except for humor (and we all joke about the books, too). I just dislike the fact that Jackson eschewed the psychologically dramatic scene Tolkien wrote for another 'hey lookit me!' sfx shot.