We knocked off all the F's today with another one of our long Sunday runs. This one really hurt, for some reason. We definitely weren't at our best. I felt really sluggish and overheated, and Ira was fighting off a cramp. We made it the whole seven miles, but this probably was our most painful run.
On the other hand, we seemed to have great "map mojo." I've chronicled lots of situations on past runs when we sort of got lost, tried to take a shortcut and hit a dead end, or other "where the heck is the building situations. Today was the exact opposite. Every decision we made paid off perfectly. I think we probably took the absolute shortest path to each building. When we made a guess where the door to a building might be, we guessed right. When we decided to head across campus following a weird diagonal route between two buildings, we came out at just the right place. It's a good thing we had such good mojo today, because I think an extra half mile detour someplace would have put us over the edge.
Our first stop today was the Faculty Club, right near Tresidder. It's a restaurant that Stanford faculty can use. I've eaten there a few times, but not for a while, so I asked Ira what he thought of it. He was not very positive, to put it mildly. "It is about as good as a Denny's," he said, criticizing the menu and the decor. "I mean, I guess it is clean. They sweep the floors." Let's move on.
We then headed across campus to the Medical School to the Fairchild Center. It's a nice looking building, and, looking through the window, you could see a lot of people in white lab coats doing stuff. That's about all I can say, actually.
We were worried about our next destination: the Falk Center. It is on the other side of the hospital, and we knew there was a lot of construction, and we thought it might be tough to find. In fact, we almost ran right by the brass plaque identifying the building. Good mojo! I found a pretty picture of this building, when it isn't surrounded by construction and chain link fences.
On the other hand, we seemed to have great "map mojo." I've chronicled lots of situations on past runs when we sort of got lost, tried to take a shortcut and hit a dead end, or other "where the heck is the building situations. Today was the exact opposite. Every decision we made paid off perfectly. I think we probably took the absolute shortest path to each building. When we made a guess where the door to a building might be, we guessed right. When we decided to head across campus following a weird diagonal route between two buildings, we came out at just the right place. It's a good thing we had such good mojo today, because I think an extra half mile detour someplace would have put us over the edge.
Our first stop today was the Faculty Club, right near Tresidder. It's a restaurant that Stanford faculty can use. I've eaten there a few times, but not for a while, so I asked Ira what he thought of it. He was not very positive, to put it mildly. "It is about as good as a Denny's," he said, criticizing the menu and the decor. "I mean, I guess it is clean. They sweep the floors." Let's move on.
We then headed across campus to the Medical School to the Fairchild Center. It's a nice looking building, and, looking through the window, you could see a lot of people in white lab coats doing stuff. That's about all I can say, actually.
We were worried about our next destination: the Falk Center. It is on the other side of the hospital, and we knew there was a lot of construction, and we thought it might be tough to find. In fact, we almost ran right by the brass plaque identifying the building. Good mojo! I found a pretty picture of this building, when it isn't surrounded by construction and chain link fences.
At this point, I almost made a horrible mistake and skipped our next destination. I try to memorize our stops and route, and I really haven't had to look at my phone for help much the last several runs. This wasn't the case for the first few, when we didn't really have the system down. We headed off in the wrong direction for about ten yards, when then I remembered we had to go to the Field Conservation Facility. We ran through a bunch of med school buildings, and eventually came out by the new Stanford intramural fields on Oak Road. As far as I can tell, this is probably the only opportunity we'll have to run down this road on this entire adventure, so we seized the day. The building at the end, though, is pretty much just a portable trailer.
We were at 2.6 miles at this point, and our next goal was the Fire Department, way on the other side of campus. Ira asked me what our mileage would be when we got there. At first I guessed 4.3, and then I changed my guess to 4.1. The real answer was 4.2. More mojo! It was a long run down Serra Road in front of the Quad, but we eventually touched the door of the fire department. There were three real fire trucks outside, and two guys were taking a picture of the coolest looking one.
Keeping with the "fire" theme, we ran back to the center of campus to the Fire Truck House. This was the fire station for the early days of Stanford, but now it is a cool building that hosts various student groups like the Women's Center. We were totally exhausted at this point, and, by "we", I mean "I". I think I ate too many pancakes for dinner the night before.
We stayed on that side of campus and headed to Forsythe Hall, which is one of those buildings that will likely be knocked down in the next phase of construction. I guess this is a bit nicer than the others, actually. George Forsythe was the founder of the computer science department at Stanford, and his wikipedia page has a quote from Donald Knuth. I probably should have stayed here a bit longer to pay some respect.
Next was a long trek to Frost Amphitheater. Again our good map mojo paid off, and we took just the right path that got us there. Frost is sort of an old relic of a venue, and we couldn't really find a sign but we touched the fence in a few places. Did you know that graduation was at Frost until the 1980s? The list of people who have played at Frost is quite impressive. Here's a picture of a packed house to hear Joan Baez.
Beaten down, we headed back to Wilbur Field, although we picked up one more place along the way. Galvez Modular is a portable right by Meyer Library, and so we ran right by it anyways, like we probably do on over half of our runs. That would be a fun stat, actually: which building have we passed more than any other? Probably the Main Quad, I guess, although I'm not sure.
Total: a painful 7.0 miles (our good mojo continued when Ira's pedometer beeped about ten feet before we hit our stopping point), 68.1 miles total.
On to the G's!
FTPG: I am reminded here that 'what is shared during the run, doesn't necessarily stay within the confines of the run.' So KMo outed my lack of enthusiasm for the Faculty Club here, which is true to a degree: I find it surprising that of all of the updated buildings and projects on campus, this spot seems quite similar to how I remember it 25 years ago when I first arrived to campus. That said, the Denny's comparison was made in jest, so my apologies to the workers, cooks, and managers at the Faculty Club!
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