Jellyfish Muscles

Today's hill run was so steep it took physical effort to run with decent posture. It is tempting for me - when hills get REALLY steep and I get REALLY tired - to bend forward into them. However, this puts the pressure of running on my lower back, which is not so good. I had to physically straighten myself more times than I should have, because fatigue tried to convince me to collapse into myself as a jellyfish might. Those old jellyfish muscles of mine just couldn't keep me straight!
I was absolutely wrecked at the end of this session. When downloading the info at a later time, I could understand why! On average, my hill runs this year have been ~215m elevation, with a variance between 180m and 232m. (You'll have to trust my math skills - I've calculated it out). Today, the grand total was: 270m!!! That's a lot extra!
For this hill run, we started at the top of Mt Coot-tha and ran down to the bottom (slow, easy jog as it was pitch black out and our running lights only illuminated so much of the rocky trail), then did reps at some of the steepest parts. I lost count of how many reps I actually did. Less than my mind wanted and more than my body wanted.

Total time: 46.41min
Total distance: 4.64km
Total elevation: 270m
Avg pace: 10.04min/km

At the end, as we climbed the final 110m elevation, I struggled to keep up with the group. I didn't fall behind by a heck of a lot as I have in previous sessions, but I definitely was lagging. One of the faster runners came back to cheer me on. "Not much further!" He encouraged. "Run the rest of the way with me." Yeah, right. I was wheezing something fierce at this point. In my attempts to keep up with the group I had been pushing myself to "run" most of the way - something I wouldn't have done had I been on my own. I had just picked a tree ahead to start walking at when he arrived.
And...Admittedly, his kindness was also choking me up a bit. I have a tendency to get emotional when exhausted. When a fellow runner chooses to run back DOWN the hill just to cheer me on in running UP it, that's more than a small kindness. At least to me.
Thank you to all the faster runners out there who stand back to encourage the slow jellyfish like me...and never once make us feel like a burden. You are what make the group runs about the group rather than the run.