Dana Burland

I have such a bad romance with Detroit’s Fifth Third Turkey Trot. This race brings out the full spectrum of racers—newbies, vets, groups, walkers, costumed crazies, runners with dogs, runners with strollers, runners with dogs AND strollers, ect. Downtown is just mobbed (get it? Detroit? Mobbed? Ba doom ching!); which is strange, exciting and special—up until the starting horn goes off. The course follows the parade route, thus there’s a lot of out and back action. Those kinds of courses aren’t particularly exciting in my POV, but even less exciting when crowd congestion forces dead stops at hair point turns. But hey! It is what it is (said with optimism because after five years of these shenanigans my dad and I have mastered sliding through this back up with relative ease). This year my dad was pacing another sub-hour 10K finish . I was having my own internal parade at the thought of his face when he saw a PR while crossing the finish line. But, if the congestion at the cours...

Nothing says romance like heading north (120 miles north of the 45th parallel line ‘north’) in November. But, That's what B and I did, last weekend while celebrating our anniversary  for a northern Michigan, back road adventure. By ‘back road’ I mean BACK ROAD (actually, I mean no road); and by ‘adventure’ I mean exaccccctly that. Maybe it was the fog + late-fall gray + ‘closed for the season’ signs + my ridiculous fear of careening off the bridge while driving over it; but our jaunt across the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula was kind of scary. B had never been to the U.P. before, and I was stubbornly set on showing him around. Important note: I’ve been to the U.P. no more than four times, for mostly indoor activities. I was no expert before a few hours planning on Google Maps. Post-trip analysis: any chance of possibly one day being an expert has been revoked. With limited time a limited budget, we were limited in our explorations. Still I found some activities to...

I typically don’t grocery shop with B. The guy has stickier fingers than a preschooler in the cereal aisle and when he’s along we always, ALWAYS, make it back to the apartment with at least one ‘treat’ in tow. Several weekends ago it was salsa. Didn’t I know that he needed it to watch the Michigan/Michigan State football game that was on that afternoon? An hour later he had set up his coffee table snacking station—with my wide mouth flowered tea mug as his dipping apparatus. Some things are unique to each of us (my long distance running, his fantasy football leagues), but slowly and subconsciously some things are becoming ours. Watching B scoop and snack out of my our flowered tea/chip dip mug was just the latest example of blurred ours/us-ness. These moments aren’t new, but living together seems to make them pop up more frequently. Our trip last spring to Montuak  with a cheap hotel and big restaurant bills was very us; our mutually trained and conquered 30-mile bike race...

Please, please try not to make a face when you read this. I know, I knooowww this doesn’t sound right. I know it sounds like I’m ruining a perfectly delightful bottle of red wine; but my younger self also thought beer tasted like feet until I got use to it. Not that this tastes like feet, I’m just saying try this. Try it once, ok? When my college roommate got back from a summer studying abroad in Spain, she brought back this drink recipe. At first I was all wine + pop? Never . I was like you! It sounded wrong! It sounded gross! It sounded like a crime against grapes that had given their life to fermentation! But lemme tell you, the only crime that could be related to Kalimotxos (pronounced cali-mochos) is a crime against Spaniards for not sharing this with us sooner (ba doom ching). Here’s the whole recipe: fill a glass half full with Coke. Finish it off with an equal part of cheap red wine. Done. Sip. Enjoy. Salud. Now, if you really want to drink like the Spaniards do...

A few weeks ago I spent my lunch break sifting through colorful corduroy pants at LOFT hoping to make a purchase. I ended up leaving empty handed, so I came back to my computer and bought this instead: Boom. My first 25K. I really didn't know after my first(/last) half-marathon if I'd race again. I had a good experience sans obscene blisters  and wanted to race again, but not right away and not with 7+ mile summer training runs involved . But lately my little body has been taking me on runs both faster and farther than usual. Also lately, my friends have been racing, and I have jealously  not been. I feel like I've both physically and mentally recooped from my last big race, and I'm ready to do it again. I want that little red number on the bottom of my planner glaring at me through the day. I want the fist-pumping pride of rocking a training run; the oozy blisters, squeals of pain during foam rolling and and not-to-be-detailed woodland mishaps. I want a goa...

I’ve been begging B to build a fire in our fireplace since I moved in late-August. Never mind it was still 80 degrees out, we found—and replanted our lives into—an apartment in our price range with one of our wildest dreamed up wouldn’t-it-be-awesome-if-we-could-afford features. This girl wanted to crank up the A/C, light a few logs and celebrate. In true fall in Michigan fashion, late-October has felt more like early-December. It’s gotten colder the last few weeks and a few days ago it finally felt like appropriate fire-makin’ weather. I had the good intentions of going to my newly favorite spin class at the gym but sometimes a night just calls for canceling plans, PJ’ing it up and playing Rummikub near crackling, cozy glow. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a man as happy as B after building his first successful fire; and rarely, if ever, have I been as cozy and happy sitting in the warmth with him beating him in Rummikub.