A lot of runners fret over the final climbs of the Boston Marathon, especially the notorious Heartbreak Hill at Mile 20.
The dirty secret about Boston, though, is that the course also requires a skill that many of its 30,000 participants have probably spent little time thinking about or preparing for: running downhill.
The uphill sections generally get all the attention, but the marathon course, which travels northeast from Hopkinton, Mass., to Copley Square in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, is what is known as a “net downhill” race. It loses nearly 450 feet of elevation over its 26.