Dana Burland

Sure I workout, but that's nothing compared to the endurance, stamina and strength built from parenting young boys. Nuthin. Truly I need that AM gym session to keep up with these guys. Case in point: Cam enjoys seeing my steps on my iPhone at the end of the day. Given I don't carry my phone around everywhere so it doesn't track everything, I do carry it when I run. If I go for a rare extra long run, then enter regular weekend parent mode, I can maybe get around 13K--but typically on weekends I'm around 8-10K.  So, Cam gets a kid's watch for his birthday, with a pedometer on it. And he wears it to day camp. That night I ask him like he asks me--how many steps? Reader. 12,284 steps. He clocked 5-6 miles. And was he tired at dinner reporting this? No. Did we go back out to play after dinner where he ran, threw a football around, wrestled? Yes. Was he overly exhausted at bedtime? Of course not.  His watch also tracks sleep, where he reported the next morning 10.5 hours ...

Long time readers MIGHT remember a many year old tradition where I bake a comical amount of chocolate chip cookies to send with Ben when he attends a bachelor party .  Happy to report, I'm back at it today! This time in honor of one of my most loyal cookie monsters, groom-to-be Julian.  I've heard multiple stories throughout the bachelor party years of his cookie consumption rate, including rumor that one night he passed out just to be found the next morning with his hand still IN the cookie container. I applaud the dedication! This is an especially fun tradition because these bachelor parties are all with the same main group of guys--buddies since AT LEAST high school, some before that.  Here's what bachelor party cookie baking has looked like in years past... Andy’s bachelor party 2014: 100 cookies baked Ben’s bachelor party in 2015: no cookie count recorded Allan’s in 2016: 159 cookies baked Joe’s in 2018: 192 cookies baked Jeremy's in 2020: 60 cookies baked Which br...

Oy. Ooof. I've never been this sore immediately after a race--which makes me fear how I'll feel tomorrow. This morning I ran the RTS 10K. It's about 1 mile on road, 3 miles on trail and 2 miles on sand.  This is not my typical jam, and you know what--I don't think it's my new, going forward jam either. The race was fun, different, beautiful, SO hard, and maybe one of those do-it-once races for me. The trail was not wildly technical, but did have exposed tree roots, rocks, leaves, plenty of single file only portions, some decent hills and portions of thick loose sand. That was really unique to maneuver around and made me nervous a wrong step could lead to injury. Then the sand. This is the punctuation mark on the "no thanks!" for this race for me.  There were three up hill dune climbs in loose, deep beach sand, two very steep down hills where we all essentially cross country skied our way to the bottom.  The first dune climb was right out of the trail--shor...

On the last episode of Home Projects, I mentioned an upcoming  patio project . We're proud patio owners! Boy, was it exciting watching that concrete get poured. Great! Concrete dried fast, it looks fantastic and we're having dinner al fresco the next day. Small bummer... our grass is allll torn up. Around the patio, along the side of the house from the small front loader. No problem! B spent a hot afternoon smoothing things out, laying top soil and grass seed. Small bummer... growing grass in the middle of a Michigan summer is tough. And our backyard zone sprinkler system is off until the sprinkler guy can move heads around the outline of the patio. We're out hand watering twice a day. Great! Two weeks later we're seeing small grass pokers! It's working! Small bummer... just then our sprinkler guy shows up and needs to do a bit more work than expected--digging up much of the newly grass seeded area. Big bummer. We're back to square one. On another hot afternoon ...

New Mile PR! Omg, can I tell you about last night? We went to the Magic of the Mile event, a track meet put on by a local running club where everyone races 1 mile, in timed heats against similar speed runners. Last year  was my first time participating. I had no idea what I could race a mile in and surprised myself with a 7:03 finish. Honestly, almost passed out after that one. This year I signed up with a secret goal of running sub 7 minutes. I signed myself up to run in a faster heat, 6:45-7:15. I planned to sprint train leading up… but the one sprint workout I did had me reeling for a week, so that was that. Otherwise I’ve been running… but slllow. I was prepared, as I told my fam/cheer squad, to hang on for dear life. But I hung in there—more than just for dear life! Kept up for lap 1, settled in with the group for laps 2 & 3, and gave lap 4 the rest of what I had. Coming up on the finish I saw the clock and knew I had it: 6:51. Good for a finish middle of the pack, wh...

Next month we're meeting family at a rental lake cottage for some summer fun. Yes, there's beach and that'll provide a lot of entertainment--but I want some other ideas to bring three generations, plus family members who don't see each other often, together.  These games were great last time , but I'm going to trial out these next time:  You'll need: Plastic cups: at least 20. All one color is fine. Paper: plain computer paper will do Straws: one per person Ping pong balls: 2-4 Pens/markers: one per person Scissors Paper Movers  Cut paper into 2in x 2in pieces. Seat al players around a table with a plate, straw and pile of paper pieces in front of them. All at once players will use their straw to suction one paper at a time--moving it from table top to plate--no hands touching paper! The player to move the most to their plate in 30 seconds wins. Balance Ball Tower (good team game) Divide your group into 2-3 teams. Give each team 10 plastic cups and 1 ping pong b...