Heartbreak Hill

From Delirium
To Epiphany

By Jim Barahal

You're back.

It's Boston.

The Boston Marathon is as defined by its hills as The Masters is by its slick greens.

In both places competitors note a paucity of oxygen, which in Boston is expressed as a wheeze whereas in Augusta a choking sound is audible to the astute listener.

Heartbreak is the last of the three Newton Hills that determine ultimate success or decomposition at the Boston Marathon. At least I'm told that it's the last of three hills. It's hard to count hills when you're in a coma and your hamstrings are doing the Funky Chicken

I ran Heartbreak Hill three times. Sure, I was barely moving, but if Anna Nicole Smith can call it sex, then I can call it running.

Although the true suffering begins in Newton, the actual race starts innocently enough. As do most things that end horribly. "Claus, can you get me my insulin?"

The starting point, Hopkinton, is the quintessential New England town, except for the one day out of the year when it has the highest daytime per capita consumption of Vaseline in the world.

In the town square the Hopkinton band plays American patriotic songs; this angers the foreign runners and explains why no American will ever win the Boston Marathon again.

The runners begin their last-minute preparations. The elite runners are ensconced in the church gym. Some of them stretch, some quietly reflect, while others shoot free throws .

The serious recreational runners, the qualifiers, sit down in the middle of the street securing their spots near the starting line. Either that or they are having flashbacks to the 1968 Democratic convention.

Hopkinton's sidewalks are teeming with the qualifier's families, spectators, vendors, and bandits. Yes the bandits. The minimal VO2 homies. Their skin is pale, their flesh is full, their eyes wide-eyed with wonder at what they are about to undertake. In other words, they look like normal people. Unlike the qualifiers, who appear to have all undergone calf lifts and sinew implants and have spent years in Zen-like solitude mastering the art of occluding one nostril while blowing snot out of the other.

The Boston Marathon starts at noon. This oddity ensures that if it is a sunny day, the spectators will be able to cheer on the runners in comfort. It also means that most of the runners have eaten breakfast, which enhances the possibility of projectile vomiting later in the festivities.

The first 15 miles of Boston are deceptively smooth and easy, much like the Presidential motorcade in Dallas before it reached the spot where Abraham Zapruder was testing out the new camera before the family trip to Knott's Berry Farm.

Runners pass through, and are later assessed a tax, by a number of communities whose names are as familiar to runners as the names of their own hometowns: Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Chappaquiddick.

Oh, the famous people that have passed through those towns on their way to beef stew and backwards stair walking in Boston.

Although no U.S. president has ever run, Michael Dukakis once ran the entire race in a tank commander's helmet. Dan Quayle ran it once after he lost a bet that he couldn't spell potato. And speaking of presidents, when Hillary Rodham was a student at Wellesley, she joined her classmates in cheering the runners on as they passed by the campus. I think I actually saw Hillary one of the times I ran, but I wasn't feeling good that day so it could have been Tip O'Neil.

As the downhill course reaches its nadir in Newton, trouble first rears its ugly head.

Newton - a gated community without the gates - is where the foothills begin. These hills do not count towards the series of three hills culminating in heartbreak. Try telling your body that they don't count.

At this point it is prudent to recall the two maxims of the Boston Marathon that have been drilled into your head since you were a child (if your father was a disciple of Earl Woods):

There are so many spectators lining the Newton hills that the only way you know you're going uphill is that you feel like you're having surgery in the Philippines without anesthesia.

The fans have newspapers with all the entrants' names and numbers, and they call out encouragement: "Hey, #2567! You want us to ship the body or should we just sprinkle the ashes in the Charles?"

As the last hill, Heartbreak, appears, you realize that if you can just make it to the top, the last five miles are all downhill.

At least that's what they tell you. There is always someone at the top saying, "All downhill." What they really need is a booth at the top of the hill selling fresh quadriceps.

There's not much to say about the last five miles that hasn't already been said, and said better, about some other death march.

The finish on Boylston Street is a celebration, a renewal, an epiphany. (Epiphany being defined as "a severe, unexpected, incapacitating total body cramp which cannot be alleviated even with large doses of endorphins.")

After staggering around the finish area, trying to remember which state of the union you're in before somebody tells you you're actually in a Commonwealth, you return to your hotel. Or the house of a friend where you're staying, someone you will almost certainly never see or even talk to again.

You carefully draw the bath, lay out the towels, and gingerly enter the soothing warm waters. This is truly a moment to be savored. Suddenly, the hot water hits your chaffed flesh, and you scream like you just found Albert DeSalvo hiding under your bed.

At that moment two things are certain:

Jim Barahal is the president of the Honolulu Marathon Association.