Dana Burland

This is going to sound really pathetic (because it is pathetic) but my left bicep is sore from carrying an average size plate with an average size breakfast quesadilla an average distance from the cafeteria in my office building (I’m spoiled) to my desk. I can run five, sometimes six (and I bet even seven) miles at a time, but I can’t carry breakfast across a building? I probably can’t even lift a crayon . This is bad news. I use to have strong, non-Jell-O like arms. When I was in high school, my club swim team hired a woman named Judy (a former jujitsu champion who looked NOTHING like her name) to run us through resistance and weight training a few times a week. The more Judy beat me up, the faster I swam. After that intro to lifting, I kept it up on my own for awhile. Sometimes I’d dry off from a high school swim practice and lace up my gym shoes to head to the gym solo. I knew how my body responded to extra dry effort, and I liked it. Now that I’m not relying on my arms to haul ...

For nine months of the year my city is quiet and quaint. In the middle of October it all begins. It started with a few mini trees zip-tied to a street light here and there. Then a truck mounted a metal candle structure to the top of a local bridge.

Once, there were 50 of these. That was an hour and a half ago. Is there any legal ramification for inducing sugar comas? I’m pretty sure that at least four of my coworkers are coming down from a dangerous sugar high and I’m partially to blame. Today a meeting nook in my office was transformed into a holiday potluck wonderland. And man alive, people showed up with their A-game. Tasty potlucks make for good work days. They should happen more often. Not wanting to compete with the award-winning Crockpot meatballs or show stopping buffalo chicken cheese dip, I decided to stick to a once successful Pinterest recipe. These mini peanut butter chocolate pretzel bites were a big hit. Fine by me since they’re super-easy, inexpensive, and a no-bake recipe. The secret to the success of these treats is the peanut butter filling. Think Reece’s peanut butter, not PB&J sandwich peanut butter. Two kinds of sugar make all the difference. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if you made a PB...

I majored in journalism when it wasn’t cool to do so. The industry was changing fast and the material at my school wasn’t. I remember my Intro to Journalism professor started off the semester with a discouraging statement: a journalism degree won’t land you a journalism job. Yay optimism! He was right—a journalism degree alone wouldn’t land me a job in the journalism industry. Practicing the new media trends as a basement blogger would. But the industry is still changing. While I spend my working hours in a digital editorial role, the new generation of ‘basement bloggers’ are creating apps and aggregating services. At one point in college when I tried to combine my journalism major with an advertising minor my advisor shut me down. He wanted me to follow the old school newsroom approach and minor in a field I could write as an expert in (hospitality and tourism “expert” at your service). I understand how major and minoring in the same concentration seems counterintuitive, but now a...

What my packing process looks like Every few months I get the itch. I’ll wake up one morning, look around and decide everything is wrong. The walls aren’t right, the shower doesn’t spray hard enough and a recent Ikea ad showed a stupidly beautiful kitchen island that I don’t have room for. I want a kitchen island. I NEED A KITCHEN ISLAND. Before I can even wipe the sleep from my eyes, these thoughts transform into an exit strategy— I should move to a one-bedroom bungalow in Jamaica, or maybe to an over-crowded apartment at the edge of town to save money for a year. I’d love it more. This mindset has nothing to do with crooked walls, low-pressure showerheads or constricted kitchens and everything to do with the gypsy-like start to my adult life. Confession: in the last six years, I’ve lived in 10 different places.

A little into a month after I started working at Runner’s World , I ran (ha!) into a new coworker at a local 5K. We chatted for a bit before the race, and giggled about how it was funny (or not really) to run into each other at a running race considering where we both work. Then he said to me, “hey, it’s not a bad Kool-Aid to drink.” True. I was ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ before my coworker caught me in a racing bib. Ok, not drinking, more like sipping, I’d say. I had been an avid sipper until I started working with a team of folks that keep multiple pair of running shoes lined up under their desks for lunch runs. But now, now I’m on the nothin’-but-Kool-Aid diet. I thought my coworker’s holiday run streak idea was fun—until she invited/challenged staffers to do it too. Today is my 12th day of running at least a mile every day, and strangely, I’m cool with it.

Going home is always so delightful, and my recent Thanksgiving vacation was no exception. I packed way too much considering I pretty much only wore my pajamas. Ahhh, vacation. When I wasn't in pjs, I was in running gear. The Runner's World Holiday Run Streak started on Thanksgiving Day, just in time for the 2011 Detroit Turkey Trot. This was the fourth year I've ran the Turkey Trot with my family, and still the biggest event yet with 21,000 trotters. I ran the 10K next to my dad, who was on a mission (that I might have assigned him) to break an hour. He rocked that race like it was no one's business; even though we had to knock several small children over at the start of the race to make it through the thick crowd. Sorry children of Detroit.

Linda was my very first internship supervisor at Signature Media in downtown Detroit. She was a short, cute, young 30-something married woman with a sense of humor and a work ethic of steel. Every single day of her working life, Linda donned a dress or skirt—not by coincidence or for comfort either. Her career wardrobe was her professional statement. In her staple look (timeless dresses, pearls, hose and heels), she was the picture of what she wanted to portray. I thought of her yesterday when I started mentally mapping this blog post. I thought of her distinct fashion and how I didn't get it and didn’t have it (my own personal style) when I worked for her. I recently unearthed my two favorite fall/winter outfits; my go-to get-up that feels comfortable, respectable, fashionable and even somewhat professional (given my casual work environment). It’s not what Linda would wear, but it's a good cold weather staple look for me.