Dana Burland

My pal Jill  is back for a blogging encore with a flexitarian recipe. I’m not the kinda girl who will just chat about food and not want to eat some, and thankfully neither is she. Jill’s Flex-Chiladas I found this recipe online and make variations of it depending on what I have on hand. Yum! Ingredients ¼ cup olive (or vegetable) oil 1 medium white onion, halved and thinly sliced 3-4 pounds mixed or button mushrooms, trimmed and sliced 1-2 jalapeño chilies, thinly sliced, including seeds 1 ½ pounds spinach, stems discarded and leaves well rinsed and spun dry salt, pepper and lime juice to taste 2 cups roasted tomato salsa with chipotle and habanero chiles 8 corn tortillas, homemade or store bought

After hearing Jill talk about going flexitarian , I felt all sorts of inspired to craft up my own healthy meatless meals. I specify “healthy” because chocolate dipped, peanut butter stuffed pretzels  are indeed meatless, but do not count as dinner. Did you hear that, self? I didn’t come up with this salad myself; I stumbled upon it on another blog ( a blog that shall not be linked to because it may or may not be a mommy blog I’m terribly embarrassed to admit I read and am currently trying to quit ). None the less, this salad already existed in some form, but it needed a little help from yours truly to take it to the next level. Thus, I claim this version as my own. It’s stupid easy to make and since it’s a no-cook, no-heat meal, I anticipate diving head first into it when temps in my third floor non-air conditioned apartment hover at 90⁰ all summer long. Chickpea, Tomato and Mozzarella Salad 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed A handful of cherry tomatoes A handful o...

Forgive me fitness gods, for I have sinned. It's been four days since my last run. — Dana Blinder (@dbur023) May 3, 2012 Four weeks after four months of training —which was after two months of streaking , after  12 months of consecutive racing , oh and after five years of casual running—I finally feel like a runner. For a while I think part of me felt some big, title-earning accomplishment was necessary. Even after what I deemed my big, title-earning accomplishment , I waited to make sure though a training plan wouldn’t be a regular part of my life, my running shoes would still be . To be honest, as exciting as it was to slap my 13.1 sticker on the back of my Saturn, it was frightening too. I mean, how dare I weave through traffic claiming I’m something I’m not? Will the idiot going 40 on the freeway I sail past be able to tell I’m a wash-up, has-been, phony bologna? I can only hope this stupid irrational fear is the worst thing that happens to me.

My pal Kate is a wise, wise lady and a spunky one, too. This isn’t her first go-around at blogging, but it is her first not addressing dudes. So, it’s with butterflies, sunshine and sparkly lip-gloss that I invite her to guest blog here, where I know three out of four of my readers can relate. Take it away, Kate! This past week I had the pleasure of babysitting my 10-month-old niece Zoli overnight. What a good kid. I mean seriously, not a cry out of her. Ok, so she may have slept horizontal in my bed, and I may have stayed up all night because I was terrified she would stop breathing, but all in all, it was a great time. As I lay in my bed—with Zoli’s feet in my ribs, my dog lounging across my legs and my cat desperately looking for her place in the pile—I realized I’m happy. I’m 31, I own a home, live alone, I’m single, without any children and I am HAPPY. Whoa, did I just say that? I am happy. For years I put pressure on myself to fit into the mold. I have almost perfected pe...

Jill is one of my book club members and local running buddy extraordinaire. The reason I even made it to half my training runs was because I knew the miles would pass quickly while gossiping on the trail with her. Recently, she told me she’s been eating flexatarin, and I was so intrigued I needed more info, stat. Here to explain for herself, guest blogger Jill: “I’ll have the rib eye. Rare please, still bleeding if you could. Actually can you just bring out the whole cow?” I’m definitely no vegetarian; but I am a flexitarian—emphasis on the FLEX—which means I eat like a vegetarian mostly, but occasionally have meat. It also means I don’t feel guilty when I order a bloody steak or ashamed when all I want to eat is a pile of veggies. Life is too short, I love all food and I give into cravings. Cravings are how I became flexitarian to begin with. I was hesitant to write this post because well, I don’t consider myself ANY kind of “tarian” advocate. Food is personal and no part of me ...

Today I retire a pair of shoes that have been with me for an embarrassingly long amount of time—and embarrassing time period, too. I think about everything these shoes have seen while attached to the bottom of my feet and then I rejoice over the fact that inanimate objects can't talk. In case you're not able to get to your local paper, here's the obit for my old kicks: Red Sketchers, 8 years old, of Great Lakes Crossings Mall (in Lake Orion, Michigan), died May 15, 2012 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was the father of Grey New Balance Classics, and second cousin once removed to Brooks Adrenaline GTX. Red Sketchers survived many a tumultuous high school football game and adventures around town. Later, Red Sketchers moved to Allendale, Michigan where he was kicked around four different college apartments, subjected to late nights waiting for chili cheese fries at 4 a.m. and other general collegiate debauchery. Later, Red Sketchers moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where...

My musical life just went through a major overhaul—an extreme iTunes library makeover, if you will. I recently ponied up for a new computer anticipating the death of my PC from college, and vowed not to overload the new one with a craptonbyte worth of files I don’t use and don’t like. So I carefully transferred over a fraction of my library, leaving behind such delights as my System of a Down albums (what was I thinking?) and a moderately sized ABBA collection (just no). The whole process made me nostalgic and brought up vivid memories—like the fight I got into with Katy in middle school over Beck’s “I’m a Loser” lyrics. We never spoke again because my sixth grade stubbornness prevented me from accepting he sang something other than “soooo, open the door”. Then I got to thinking…big-name musicians get to put together compilation albums, why can’t I? For the sake of memories and giggles, here’s the Greatest Hits of Dana’s Adolescent Life (subtitled: Questionable Tunes From The Que...

This is the story of a social media campaign, and how sometimes the best ideas are the simplest—and the already thought of—ones. For the last few months at Runner’s World my coworkers and I have been promoting our first ever running event  coming up this fall. (Side note: come run with us!) A brilliant, brilliant mind on our marketing team had promotional ‘Bart Marks’ created, which are basically bookmark-style cardstock cartoon cutouts of our semi-famous staff member, Bart Yasso. The name ‘ Bart Yasso ’ may or may not mean something to you, but to the running community he’s as popular as bleeding nipples and missing toenails (albeit much more enjoyable). Well, one of Bart’s almost 12,000 Facebook fans (between his maxed out personal profile and fan page) snapped a photo of their Bart Mark in a homemade Lego set up referring to him as ‘Flat Bart’. Doh! Flat Bart a la Flat Stanley , why didn’t I think of that? I got to chatting with Bart about it and he mentioned this wasn...

A week out from my half-marathon I started to get nervous, but not about covering the 13.1 mile course. Instead, looking ahead in my planner, I had a momentary freak-out about the missing red numbers at the bottom of each day. For the last four months I’ve followed the religion of my running coach—I've been a loyal observant of my training plan and whatever mileage was required of me written in red. Now? I got nothin’. I feel free in that mischievous, undisciplined bad way that a 7-year-old with a pair of scissors and a toy box full of Barbies feels. And though I felt ready for training to be done, now I kind of feel like my bald Barbies have been viciously taken away. Sidenote: I never cut my Barbie's hair, I doodled on Ken with red sharpie and made him come back from war instead. I was quite creative.

Happy early Cinco de Mayo, mis amigos. Arriba! Thought I’d pop in with a semi-Mexican themed burrito recipe to spice up your afternoon. As far as I’m concerned, there are two kinds of burritos in this world: the traditional Mexican version with simple, no fuss ingredients (beans, rice, cheese—the end) or revved up Americanized monsters with everything from mozzarella sticks to a small car radio swimming in a sea of hot lava nacho cheese wrapped up to go. Both are equally delicious. I dig burritos for their portability, but would rather skip on the my-insides-are-rotting feeling afterward (I know you know what I mean). So, I cleaned my recipe up a bit; here’s my take on chicken burritos, with plenty of room to customize to your lava nacho cheese liking.

One of the joys of living in an old house converted into apartments is that there's still a lot of unique charm--like the 100-year-old windows that have been painted over so many times some of them don't open. Charming! Another perk is the yard; I hear more buzzing bees, chirping birds and climbing squirrels than I do cars, planes or trains. We've got lots of squirrels around the yard, including Dumpster Squirrel, the critter who hangs out by between the huge oak tree and the big dumpster behind our apartment. He'd just be another crazy tree jumping squirrel, but DS is always scurrying across the lid of the dumpster and launching himself against the tree or occasionally INSIDE the dumpster munchin' on some moldy sandwich bread every.single.time I take out the trash. I didn't mind the squirrels--in fact I had a soft-spot in my heart for Dumpster Squirrel especially--until last week. I was hanging out at B's last Wednesday night when my roommate franticall...