I HATE anything that is a “Year in Review.” I won’t read the endless lists of the best and worst 2008 or photos of the year… But at the same time, I’m feeling somewhat reflective today.

This has been an eventful year! Not everything has been good, but a LOT has happened.

I have met some really great people! Funny how much harder it is to make friends when you are my age. It’s not like in grade school where you can just talk to the kid sitting next to you in class. It’s nice meeting new people and feeling that they contribute something to your life. At the same time I have reconnected with a bunch others I’ve been too busy to see. I almost forgot how much fun they can be.

This year I also lost some friends. A couple due to death — a couple out of circumstance. Though I feel I have gained much more than I lost, the hole some friends have left will be very hard to fill.

The races I travelled to were fantastic! The trip to the Big Sur Marathon was a once-in-a-lifetime experience! It was by far the most beautiful place I have been to in my life and the people I travelled with were a lot of fun. At the other end of the country, the Detroit Marathon was such a pleasant surprise. Not only was the race great, the city was clean, beautiful and very welcoming. And, again, the people I travelled with were great. I would definitely go back!

We’ve had some ups and downs with the magazine, too. Some of our new features turned out so much better than I had expected! The content of the magazine gets better and better, but the promotion side has been hard. I hired and lost an ad person (ad sales are critical to success. We have some fantastic loyal readers! I wish I had about 60,000 more of you. LOL

We’re trying to make some major changes to the magazine. Going to 6 issues a year is going to be challenging. And I’m nervous about the reaction to our going electronic. My hope is that we will attract those additional 60,000 readers we want — I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

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