newton hills: all four of them
By PaceKit Team · Updated April 2026
Heartbreak Hill gets the name, the signs, and the photographs. But it's the fourth of four hills, and if you arrive at Heartbreak having blown up on the first three, the name becomes prophecy.
Hill 1 (Mile 16 to 16.6). The course crosses Route 128 and begins the first Newton Hill immediately. It's roughly 0.6 miles at an average grade of about 3%. This hill is the wake-up call. You've been running rolling terrain for 10 miles, and suddenly the road tilts upward with purpose. The grade isn't savage, but the timing is: you're at mile 16, glycogen stores are beginning to deplete, and the hill arrives without preamble. After cresting, you get a mile-plus of downhill recovery.
Hill 2 (Mile 17.5 to 18). Shorter than the first, but steeper in spots. It starts with a deceptive flat that teases you, then climbs in a punchy way that feels disproportionate to the actual elevation gain. This is the hill that starts separating people. Runners who went out conservatively are still running. Runners who went out aggressively are beginning to walk.
Hill 3 (Mile 18.5 to 19.5). A sharp incline just after Newton City Hall that's longer and more sustained than Hill 2. By this point, the cumulative effect of three consecutive climbs on legs that have been running for 18+ miles is severe. The crowd support through Newton is strong, which helps, but the hill doesn't care about crowd support. This is where the phrase "the hills hit different at mile 19" becomes viscerally real.
Hill 4: Heartbreak Hill (Mile 20 to 20.5). Half a mile at roughly 3.3% to 5% grade. It rises 88 feet, from about 148 to 236 feet elevation. Individually, this climb is less steep than many of the hills runners encounter in training. The reason it breaks hearts is not the grade. It's the location: mile 20, after three prior hills, on quads that have been absorbing downhill and rolling terrain since Hopkinton. Heartbreak Hill is a test of what you did in the first 16 miles, not a test of hill strength.
There's a banner at the top. When you see it, you've crested Heartbreak, and the course turns downhill toward Boston. But beware: the narrative that "it's all downhill after Heartbreak" is misleading. The descent is real but it creates its own problems.
The key insight about Newton Hills: they are a sequence, not four isolated events. Each hill depletes what the previous recovery gave back, and less and less gets returned each time. By the time you reach Heartbreak, you're running on a deficit that started at Hill 1. Training for Newton means training for accumulated climbing fatigue, not training for one big hill.