Running Shorts

U.S. distance legend Frank Shorter once remarked that the marathon consisted of two halves: the first twenty miles and the last six. You run that first half, and then race the second half. Well, here we go. Halfway done. Time to race . The looming feature quickly approaching is the famous Heartbreak Hill. You know it’s bad when it has a name. Actually, in the grand scheme of things, Heartbreak isn’t all that big of a hill. The road doesn’t even rise 100 feet over the course of less-than-one-half-mile; I’ve run over similar inclines on the dirt roads around my hometown. Hell, Heartbreak isn’t even the toughest of the four Newton hills. I can take some small solace in knowing that the hardest hills have past. I hope. No, what makes Heartbreak Hill so dangerous isn’t he incline itself, but rather its placement, sitting right on the tail edge of twenty miles. Most humans can store about 2,000 calories of glycogen and most humans burn about 100 calories per mile of runn...