Careful at Heartbreak Hill – that's what you're likely to be told if you ask an experienced international marathoner, especially an American. That’s what happened to me when I told Donald Bloome, the former US ambassador to Pakistan, that I was going to run the Boston Marathon in 2023 under a diverse charity collaboration with the South Asian Circle of Hopkinton and the Pakistani-American community of Massachusetts.

Is it really about Heartbreak Hill? Well, it is to a great extent, because it can break many runners.

When you finish the marathon, you don't see a big banner of triumph felicitating you. But when you finish your gruesome ascent of Heartbreak Hill, you see a large banner saying, "Congratulations on Summiting Heartbreak Hill” It's the last of the four Newton Hills between the 32–34-kilometre mark of the Boston course. Luckily, it did not break my heart.

Since 1970 for men and 1972 for women, Boston has been the only qualifying marathon in the world. Qualifiers who were six minutes and 51 seconds (6:51) or faster than the qualifying time for their age group and gender have been accepted into the 129th Boston Marathon, which will be held tomorrow (April 21).

A total of 24,069 qualified applicants have been accepted. It is considered a great honour in athletics to qualify for Boston. A few thousand spots are kept for several charity fundraising programmes.

Where do Pakistanis stand in this tough marathon, in which the course record for men – 2:03:02 by Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya – has not been broken since 2011, and for women – 2:19:59 by Buzunesh Deba........

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