(Maybe one of these days my blog will change more often than the seasons…)

The fall semester is in full swing, and so is my half-marathon clinic. The past month and a half I’ve been splitting my time between puzzling over my algorithms course homework and running all over North Burnaby. Both activities are going reasonably well.
The algorithms course is turning out to be fairly manageable, though I’m using parts of my brain I haven’t used since my third year of undergrad (which further in the past than I care to admit!) and have had to relearn calculus. In other school-related activities, I am hoping to have a first draft of a research plan for my thesis sometime soon. I’ve got a workshop paper on my research topic at a conference in Banff next month and will hopefully be able to get lots of good feedback there.

Running is fun but has been taxing on my body. I’ve spent a small fortune on physio and massage therapy in the past month to deal with some IT band problems. Oh, and I also need orthotics, apparently. Luckily UBC’s student health plan is pretty darn awesome and covers almost 100% of the cost of my orthotics, and 50% of the physio and massage. I haven’t been able to do a lot of the longer runs with my half-marathon clinic group lately, which has been frustrating, but I am slowly recovering and increasing my mileage. It’s just a little over a month until the half-marathon now!