Kick Your Defiance in Pains Teeth

I read the title phrase on the shirt of a fellow runner at about mile 12. It made no sense to me at all. I must have passed that runner, cause at mile 24 or so he passed me again... and then... I understood. See, by that time me and pain were well acquainted. And my defiance was waning....
Thank You fellow runner, your shirt helped me kick pain in the teeth! ;-)

Marathons are hard! This one was my hardest so far. That being said, I had a great time. As I have at every race I've ever run. The weather was fantastic for running - no rain - sunny but not super hot. I got a little warm by the end of the race, but really could not have asked for a nicer day.
I have done the Portland Marathon 3 times before. First time I walked, with one of my best friends. (I was not a runner before). I loved walking it, but.... wanted to get done faster and I liked the idea of running. So, next time I ran with a different friend. Both of these friends I was able to train with the whole summer, that makes it so much more enjoyable. The the third time I ran it with my cousin from California, so we were not able to train together at all, that made training hard. I had a great time running that marathon, but was not keen to train again without a partner. So, after that marathon I pretty much stopped exercising for a few years (read- MMORPG). I finally got back into running the beginning of this year, (I found a new running partner read- ipod nano) but I am about 20 pounds heavier than I was at my last marathon 5 years ago... so I was 45 minutes slower and it hurt alot more.

Solution? = Lose 25 pounds! :)
Goal for next year is sub 4 hours. This has always been a goal, really. This is like a sorta holy grail for alot of novice runners.

My brother says he'll run with me next year. Yay! We should be able to do some training together too as we live in the same area.

Thanks to Hubby, Mom & Dad, Frank, Tyler and Lindsey for coming down to watch me finish. A few of those peeps walked the 10k for the day too! :)