Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed time with special people, and at least enjoyed the calories that none of us really should have consumed! My crazy food included a Paula Deen butter and cream cheese cake. I could feel my arteries hardening.

But my first Christmas without my dad turned out okay. My mom, brother + fam, sister + fam enjoyed our time together, and no one caused any big uproar -- always a good thing.

Spending time in NC with my mom has made me realize I really need to find a way to get back down here quicker. Since my Michigan job has now turned into part-time, I'll definitely include NC in my job search. It sure would be nice if I could spend a significant part of the year with her. We'll see.

My running has been lame. But I'll keep at it.

Amanda had a great idea -- if I'm not running the Disney Half in the future, I could volunteer! I think it would be super fun! I will run local 10Ks, by the way. I won't give up running, just will run shorter distances.

See some of you soon!

What a year. And I don't really mean that in a good way!

It has been interesting. Lots of ups and downs, for all of our gang.

For those of us who didn't have a great year of training and eating right, and know that we left opportunity on the table -- it is what it is. But every morning, every minute, we can start fresh. So let's keep trying to move forward.

I am pretty sure I am done with half marathons, but I hate that this year hasn't been an improvement over last year. I really was looking forward to building on what I accomplished last year. But I didn't know I would lose my dad this year, and I didn't know that training without that "fear of being swept" would be harder. I also didn't know our Team Voice would be more distracted and busy and less connected this year (I'm a prime example) -- but it's totally understandable. And it certainly makes me understand how TRULY MAGICAL our experience was last year.

But it seems like we do have some Team Voicers who have had a great year, and are destined to have fabulous runs -- and I am SOOOO happy for them! You know, all year I've watched Rae's training and races, and am still amazed and flabbergasted by her drive! Could we please bottle some of this up, Rae?!!

Hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn about everyone's experiences this year. Please forgive me if I didn't say something quite the right way.

Now despite my bummer of a year, I am still VERY excited about seeing some of Team Voice in a few weeks at WDW! I'm NOT excited about the race, but I'll just gut it out and try to enjoy the experience as best I can.

And after MILE 13, I'll start looking forward to enjoying some 10Ks!