I would ask you to forgive the bad puns, but they’re going to be the standard here. This is Dan Murray’s “Running Code,” the blog about running and coding that no one asked for (except my capstone course instructors, but maybe this blog will outlive their intended purposes). While I’m no expert on anything, especially running or coding, I do hope that someone, somewhere may find my experiences useful or funny – hopefully more of the former, but the latter is great, too, if it keeps people around.
Who am I? I’m Dan Murray, a Washington, DC-based amateur runner, budding software engineer, and current technical writer. The main content of this blog for the foreseeable future will focus on my capstone project for my post-baccalaureate computer science degree at Oregon State University. At the same time, I’ll try to keep things interesting with updates on what I’m doing with my running or other running-adjacent activities. I’ll try to keep things fresh – a little bit of school stuff, a little bit of slice-of-life, a little bit of training journal. Updates won’t be daily, but I hope to put things in here a little more often than the CS 467 course schedule dictates. I don’t think anyone will actually be reading this (except my capstone course instructors – don’t worry, you do count as people), but I think it best to at least operate as if people were.
With the introductory material out of the way (thank you, yes, wonderful to meet you), let’s try something a little more normal.
94 days until the Boston marathon and 10 weeks until my second-to-last term at Oregon State University is complete. Too early for things on either front to come into focus yet, but not so early that preparation doesn’t matter. In terms of school, I think the term is off to a fine start. I’m taking two classes on top of my full time job, CS 325 (Analysis of Algorithms) and CS 467 (Capstone). I’ve been taking two classes a term since I started at Oregon State in June of 2022. It really hasn’t been too long, but I’d be lying if I said it weren’t starting to wear on me a little bit. Fortunately, both CS 325 and CS 467 cover interesting material – especially CS 467. We’ve just put in preferences for our project for the term, and I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll get one of my top few choices. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t get one of those – most of the projects look genuinely interesting – but there are a few that touch on embedded systems, music, video game emulators, and lower-level programming that I think would be truly fun to work on. I don’t say that lightly. Most of my coursework for the post-baccalaureate CS program has been pretty fun (I wouldn’t be paying good money and giving up my social life for two years if it wasn’t), but some of these projects are the type of thing that I’d like to being doing in my free time as a hobby when I wrap up this degree. Again, I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get one of those, but the prospect of getting one of those projects has me feeling pretty stoked.
Preface to running content: I’m very new to writing about my running endeavors, so please forgive me if I don’t quite hit my stride until I’ve done this a couple times. Like all things in life, writing takes practice. My English degree prepared me for literary analysis (a very useful skill in this economy), not blogging.
In terms of my running, the last week has been less than ideal. I started my training for Boston at the start of December, and don’t think I did a great job ramping up my mileage prior to the start of that block. I was a little lazy with my preparation and was going to try a training plan that involved higher mileage than my usual – which, you will know if you are a runner, was a bad idea. I strained my hamstring a little over a week ago on a tempo run – 3 miles easy, 6 miles at ~6:15, 3 miles easy – and needed to take a few days off. During the short break, I tried to do yoga as much as my schedule allowed and did everything I could to stretch out the hamstring. It’s feeling a lot better now, but now quite at 100%. I had a tempo run planned for today, but decided to take the day off. I think I’ll give it another couple days before I try tempo again. The thought of a setback or giving myself a more serious injury makes my stomach flip. Tomorrow I’ll do an easy run and go to yoga and do an 18-mile easy run on Saturday if I think my hammy can handle it. I’m feeling optimistic.
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