If it seems that Serena Burla has been running for most of her life, she has. Having a father who has coached the Waukesha West girls’ high school track and field and cross country teams for the last 43 years while growing up in Waukesha, WI, encouraged her to begin competing in short distances in the third grade. While at West, Serena led her team to one runner up and three state cross country team titles. After high school, she competed for the University of Missouri in distance races. While a Tiger she was two-time Big 12 Conference runner-up and attained all-American status in the 10,000 meters in 2006.

After college, she married her college boyfriend, Adam Burla, a shot putter at Missouri, moved to St. Louis and hung up her competitive racing shoes, running just for fun. However, as with any competitive spirit, her running career was far from over. Coach Isaya Okwyia of the running group, Riadha (Swahili for athletics) discovered how well she had run in high school and college and felt she had potential. Burla wanted to try the marathon and Okwyia recognized her potential for success.

Planning on training for a few years before running a marathon in the spring of 2010, she started on Okwyia’s training regimen. However, in the fall of 2009 what began as an intermittent pain in her right hamstring escalated and became constant. After hobbling through the 2010 USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston in January, where she still managed to finish second (1:10:08) to Shalane Flanagan, her coach insisted she seek treatment for what Burla assumed was inflammation.

Burla traveled to New York City to see specialist Daniel Hammer, who initially thought it was bursitis. After a scan, she was told that it was a malignant tumor, synovial sarcoma, that had replaced one of the muscles in her right hamstring. At the end of February 2010, she returned to New York for surgery to remove part of her hamstring. Her surgeon could not find any athlete who had had this surgery. He also could not guarantee Burla could run again, let alone compete, but did believe the prognosis was very good.

Being just happy to be alive and have her leg, and wanting to be with her husband and young son, Boyd, running was no longer what was important to her. However, by April 2010, Burla was able to walk-run for the first time since her operation. And she has been moving forward ever since. In January, 2013, she won the USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston. Then at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, she placed 10^th in the marathon with a time of 2:31:06. She followed that with a PB of 2:26:53 for 4^th place at the 2017 Osaka Women’s Marathon.

Through all of the adversity and ordeal in her life Burla has become an inspiration and motivating presence for others, and often speaks about her life and running experiences. She is, in her own words, “a two-time cancer survivor, wife, mother, loud laugher, positive thinker and lover of life.”