Jen, I'm in the grueling middle months of training for my first Boston in '08, and I've had exactly the same question. Haven't really heard a solid answer, but what I did to put Boston's elevation profile into perspective was to look up an elevation profile for a local half marathon whose hills I know and am all too familiar with. I then compared the feet gained/lost per mile on the hills which I can visualize with the feet gained/lost per mile (or even half mile) on the Boston profile. Turns out it's really **** hard to find a New England-esque hill anywhere in Northern Colorado, but there are a few comparable sections of mountain side slopes that will have to do. In the mean time, I'm integrating hilly runs when I can to prepare my quads for the downhills. Good luck! And let me know if you find any more information.

Yeah, I had a pretty brutal qualifying race in Denver. Warm day, poorly paced, didn't really train exceptionally hard, didn't eat right, and so on down the line. But it was my first marathon, so I'm really just hoping to enjoy Boston as much as run a good time. It sounds to me like your hills will put you in good stead for Boston. I briefly ran with a coach who had the team do short downhill sprints to develop the whole downhill technique, though I think any quick downhill running is penty for a marathon. I wouldn't worry about the crowds. You'll be chip-timed, so you don't really start until you cross the starting line, and then I've heard the crowd has a tendency to start too fast because of the downhill start (so I've heard). Out of curiousity, what kind of time are you shooting for?

Sounds like you're really gunning for Boston! I've been training with a friend of mine, and we're both training to run around 6 minute miles in Boston. Another friend of mine ran NYC this fall in 2:43, so I'd like to get him to run boston as well, and see if I can keep up with him. (I used to be faster!) As far as training goes, I've been doing around 55-60 miles a week, and then a "down week" every fourth week or so (25-40). If I had more time, I'd like to try my legs at 80 mile weeks, but that hasn't happened so far. I've also been doing some type of speedwork about once a week, 400's or intervals early in the fall and lately I'm doing tempo runs. I'm trying to get myself in good, near peak, shape for a 10 mile race in january, and then I'll take a couple of weeks to rest up before really setting into the last couple of months before boston. (I tend to peak quickly, so I'm trying to stay as fresh as possible by "resetting" by body's training level. It worked in college pretty well.) I have plenty of good hills to run on out here in colorado, but they tend to be too steap and too long to really compare to Boston, but I'll be overprepared for hills if nothing else. For long runs, I've gotten up to 20, and I've got a good cycle going of a short but fast long run (14-16) followed by long slow run (18-20). I may try going as far as 26-30 miles (slowly), just to get used to the distance, but we'll see how fresh my legs are feeling around mid-january. That's the general plan, which of course changes periodically. How's your training going?

Heartbreak hill is honestly no big deal and I didn't even train for Boston the year I ran it. It's like a hill in your neighborhood and probably even smaller.

Jen,

For some additional insight, you may want to view the Nova documentary on 12 runners as they prepare to run the Boston Marathon: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/marathon/

The entire program can be watched in segments at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/marathon/program.html