 It's one of the most iconic and challenging spots on the Boston Marathon Route, and it's right here in Newton, Heartbreak Hill. How's it like running on the Heartbreak Hill? It's pretty brutal. The name makes it sound like it's incredibly steep, but it only rises 88 feet vertically over a four-tenths of a mile span. So what makes it so challenging? Just the distance, I guess. The fact that it's after not a few hills, so just keeping the momentum and energy up. It goes 20 miles into the race, which makes it a very challenging hill for most runners. Heartbreak Hill begins between the 20 and 21 mile marks and is the last of four Newton Hills. Though the ascent is modest, Heartbreak Hill comes in the portion of the marathon where muscle glycogen stores are most likely to be depleted, something marathoners call hitting the wall. Mentally, you gotta, you know, just stick with it and grind through, but, you know, physically it's not too bad, I guess. So where did Heartbreak Hill get its name? It was during the 1936 marathon when the legendary Johnny Kelly overtook Tarzan Brown in Newton and gave him a pat on the shoulder as he passed him. In his gesture, lit a fire in Tarzan who rallied and overtook Kelly to win the race. The Boston Globe sports editor at the time, Jerry Nason, saw the incident and coined the ascent, Heartbreak Hill, citing that Kelly was heartbroken when he lost. Heartbreak Hill's legacy lives today in Newton in the form of the Heartbreak Hill running company, located in the marathon route right before the ascent. I think the idea was just, you know, we're on Heartbreak Hill, the logo, it's a heart with a breakthrough and the brakes actually the actual elevation grade of the hill, which is kind of cool, a lot of people don't know that. Boston marathon runners most likely won't be thinking about the significance and history of Heartbreak Hill when they run the race. What they will be feeling though is the effects of fatigue in their legs when they run up the treacherous hill. For Newt News, this is Andre Catatourine.