Unchartered territory:16 miles

So I recovered from my longest run so far just to turn around this week and go a mile farther.  Trying to calm my nerves ;)

On Monday morning I went for a 3 mile run before the sun came up. It was wonderful. 

Then on Wednesday I ran 5 miles before work with my husband. It was pathetic and I started to cry at mile 2. I know. Stupid. I don't even know why. I think I was just freaking out. My mind was my enemy- what am I doing? This is crazy!I can't do this! My husband was a good coach and talked me out of my pitty party. He reminded me of the people I watched last year at his marathon cross that finish line. If they could do it so could I. I saw this picture and it made me laugh. 

So then we finished the five and I felt great. After work I met up with my friends and I ran another 5. It was funny because we had a sudden rain/hail/thunderstorm roll though. It caught all us fair weathered Californians off guard so we had a slew of texts going back and forth about cancelling the run. Finally we decided it wasn't raining anymore and we would man up and get it done. It is so much fun running with others. I still worry about being slow, breathing to hard, not being able to talk, sucking going up the hills. One of the ladies is training for an Ultra. I just met her but she will be there tomorrow and I hope to ask more marathon advice. All the other ladies have more running experience than me so I feel very fortunate to have such great running partners. It felt so awesome to have run 10 miles in addition to an 8 hour work day. Luckily Thursday ended up being a light work day for me. 

Today I did some push-ups, chair dips, tabata planks, etc. I tried to do stuff that would tire my legs. Tomorrow we are going to meet for 16 miles. I'm the only one that needs to go that far but the lady training for the Ultra needed to do 14 so she said she would bump it up and join me for the full 16. The others I think are doing 5 -11. They will just run part of it with us. I think we're just running around town to make it easy to add/drop miles as needed. And the weather will be clearing up and should be perfect. 

Well....wish me luck on this next step for me. Yikes..I guess I'm ready:/