Hard yards?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Hard yards?

But are we so sure?

For one thing, one study I read somewhere claims that as a group, marathon runners seldom develop cancer due to the great amount of sweat they produce on a daily basis. That has to be a benefit, right? That has to be a reward for their colossal physical effort, right?

Right, there are other benefits resulting from running a marathon, of course, but let's talk about “hard yards” a bit.

Yard, you see, is a unit of measurement of length. A yard is three feet equal to, approximately, 91.4 centimetres.

“Hard yards” refer to the distance a runner has to actually run in a particular race, “hard” signifying that sometimes a race, such as the marathon which is 42.195 kilometers (42.195 kilometres (or 26 miles and 385 yards), can be physically exhausting and mentally taxing.

It's all hard work, in other words.

Hence, when people metaphorically talk about running, making or putting in the hard yards, they mean simply that you have to make the necessary effort, no matter how exhausting or taxing the task is.

In terms of the marathon runner, the least they do is to cover the distance, all 26 miles and 385 yards of it. Without doing that, i.e. running the hard yards, they won't be even considered a marathon runner.