Dana Burland

A month and a half ago my team at work got approval to travel to France. Ben and I, having never been to Europe, seized the opportunity and quickly tacked on vacation time to my trip. There’s too much to say about my 11 days overseas for one blog post, so here’s one of many recapping a really great adventure. Amsterdam Central Station I flew direct from Detroit to Amsterdam landing at 7am Sunday morning. I purposefully planning a long layover in Amsterdam en route to France so I could explore the city with coworkers. Together we took a 3-hour walking tour of Amsterdam’s city center. The streets of Amsterdam are beautiful with row houses, bike lanes and canals running through them. Because of faulty foundation many of the houses lean precariously. Our tour guide pointed out hooks at the top of each building where a pulley can be attached to move large items up levels. At 10am the “cafes” were already alive with clouds of pot smoke and a few red light windows were open for...

Last night was super fun. We went to our first Frederik Meijer Garden concert and saw one of Ben’s favorite bands, Of Monsters And Men. It looked like we’d get rained on but the weather held out for the show. Ben scoped out a perfect spot for us to sit and we ended up with great seats pretty darn close to the stage. We heart all their hits—Little Talks, Mountain Sound, King And Lionheart, Crystals—and they ended with the song Ben specifically wanted to hear, Dirty Paws. They sounded so impressive live and we loved watching their back-up members switch between playing the trombone, trumpet, accordion and at times up to four different sets of drums.

Saturday morning Ben passed the GMAT with the score he needed to get into his grad program—this morning it was my turn to impress. Evan I were both competing in the Grand Rapids Triathlon. It was the first for both of us and we were so, so nervous and excited. We got to the race at 6:30am (for a 6:45am course meeting). At 7am the half Ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) athletes started their swim. It was super fun to watch them, especially when they got out of the water and had race volunteer “strippers” help remove their wetsuits. We set up our transition area by hanging our bikes on make-shift bike racks and setting out towels, helmets and other race essentials. The race had around 10 different waves of swimmers based on distance and age group. A few minutes before our 8am swim start time we wadded into the water to get ready. Can you spot us? We both felt good after the air horn sounded and took off quickly. Both Evan and I passed a hand...

I laugh in the face of chocolate chip cookie recipes. Those promising to be “the best”, “classic”, “ultimate”—they’re not. I have the best, classic, ultimate recipe. It’s my mom’s. There’s no point in straying, as I recently learned, ever. Last month BuzzFeed published an article on with four “best” chocolate chip cookies depending on your taste. Because my gal pal Elena was made the classic/ultimate recipe, I clicked through to read. Initially I was intrigued. BuzzFeed’s ultimate recipe is very, very close to my mom’s except for the lack of rolled oats and the choice of melting the butter. Since I had a gazillion cookies to make for Allan’s bachelor party , I decided to test out my mom’s recipe—with melted instead of softened butter. When the first batch came out of the oven I had Ben do a blind taste test. He was quick to confirm—not better, stick to the originals. The melted butter cookies tasted the same but when baked spread wide and thin. The new texture didn’t win over...

I’m part of a runner’s group at work that provides entry into a few local races. This past Saturday’s Reed’s Lake 5K was included. Normally Ben and I run 5Ks together but he was out of town—so I daydreamed about setting a solo PR. I’ve been triathlon training, but I forgot just how speedy my PR was. It was a really hot morning, I’m suffering from bad blisters from training, I spread eight bags of mulch by myself the night before and had a bad breakfast provoking digestive issues the morning of. Plus I wanted to bike to/from the race start. So. I decided, yeah, no PR—but how about under 27 minutes? Right when the race started my legs felt heavy. A gazillion people passed me but I tried to focus on running strong. The course was mostly great minus running on sand in a construction zone, mostly shaded minus spots of brutal direct sun and mostly cheery with a few neighbors coming out onto their front lawns to watch. I finished mile 1 a little slow and fought off some side cramps ...

Last week I went to a triathlon clinic. Twenty minutes of the hour-long talk was lead by an older French man who owns a wetsuit company. You need a wetsuit, he said. It needs to be triathlon specific and you need to get fitted for it now to have it by race day. I’m a strong swimmer but extremely intimidated with open water swimming. That’s why I signed up for the triathlon. But I don’t want to buy a wetsuit. And I don’t want to rent one to use on race day when I haven’t trained with it. This morning the triathlon hosted a swim practice in the river where we’ll race next weekend. The river typically has no public swim access so this was a rare and valuable event. I was awake damn near all night nervous about swimming int he river. By the time I fell asleep, my alarm went off—along with a low rumble of thunder. When I left the house at 7:30 this morning it was pouring rain. When I arrived at the river it was in the low 60’s and drizzling. When I walked over to the beach I s...

It's bachelor-parties-of-Ben's-friends tradition that I bake a gazillion chocolate chip cookies for the dudes. I remember lining our apartment countertops with 100 cookies for the first bachelor party, Andy's, and thinking there's no way the'll get through them all. Ben later told me they were gone by the first morning. I can't remember how many I baked for Ben's bachelor party, but it was a lot. Again, they didn't make it to noon of the first full day, in fact one the guys was found the first morning passed out with an empty cookie tin beside him. This weekend is Allan's turn. With 18(!) guys getting together to celebrate him, I asked Ben how many cookies I should bake. The answer was simply you will never bake enough. I don't doubt that to be true, but I'm hoping my strong showing this year breaks my previous record and at least lasts until Saturday afternoon. Fingers crossed.