Quiz a regular marathon runner on his recollections of any of those striking colours instead, and he’ll remember not even a blur. Third Sundays of January in Mumbai don’t lend themselves to leisure. Exhaustion is an infinitely more suitable word. And the 400m stretch of the Pedder Road Hill _ its laborious ascent more pronounced than the fall - is a challenge when it beckons at 7.7 km early in the race; plain torment when it teases at 36 km while trudging on the return.

Yet, the ‘Hill’ is where the pros are itching to pull off their ambitious stunts - Mumbai’s inaugural winner Hendirck Ramaala did a maverick four trips of the hump in 2004, reddening the complexion of the thrilling race _ a year before his most famous duel with world champ Paul Tergat in New York. Mumbai can claim to have stoked some of the eccentricity beginning that year.

Mumbai’s Hill, and the thrills associated with it, though, fall short of what has come to be regarded as the most monstrous mountain in marathons - Boston’s Heartbreak Hill. A consolatory pat on the shoulder from a smug defending champ John A Kelley spurred on the then race leader Ellison ‘Tarzan’ Brown who went on to win _ to quote Boston Globe reporter Jerry Nason - breaking Kelley’s heart.

Not as stirring as that, neither as back-breaking in effort as the third-bumpy hill that runners in Boston counter, Mumbai’s Pedder Road Hill though, has its own adventure. Savio D’Souza who has been training clusters of amateurs for the annual event reckons this is where many resolves get broken. “If you say ‘Oh my God’ when you merely see it, then you are in trouble,” he says of the most-repeated utterance, when approaching the incline. Say ‘I will’ to the Hill, he urges.

“It is no doubt the biggest challenge on this route, and when coming back you’ve already run 3/4ths of the race, and the heat is draining you. But negative thoughts never help,” he preaches patience to vulnerable first-time souls. Breathless and lead-footed: not quite in a fit state for sermons, runners are hardly thinking straight, frantically wishing away the wall, and here comes the hump! All frown-hill from here, one would expect.

“Attack’s the best form of defence. Don’t increase your pace, just maintain it. Take it easy, the marathon’s won in the last 5 kilometres,” D’Souza gives the practical solution. The Hill provides shade on your comeback journey of the 42 km, the adjoining buildings and trees casting cooler shadows which the last stretch can’t offer. ‘Small mercies!’ pant the runners.

“Drink lots of water before the hill,” advises century-marathon champ Sunita Godara, who after her Boston experience of Himalayan magnitude calls Mumbai a mere hillock in comparison. Much the same, the advice from Shivdhan Singh, one of the most ingenious of India’s pros is handy. “Lean your upper body forward, take smaller paces, save energy, and while going down loosen the body and gradually speed up,” he says of the topography that is par for course for pros.

Route director Hugh Jones, himself a veteran of myriad courses, says good preparation can easily reduce the stress about the hill, if not quite make it a total saunter. “For physiological conditioning, simple hill training will work Running uphill in repeated efforts (say 10 x 400m) is great general conditioning and it also provides confidence for when hills are encountered,” he offers.