Tower running is a competitive sport where athletes race up the staircases of tall buildings, from skyscrapers to famous landmarks. It’s one of the simplest endurance sports in concept: start at the bottom, climb as fast as you can, and the first person to reach the top wins. Despite that simplicity, it demands an unusual combination of leg power, cardiovascular fitness, and mental toughness that sets it apart from traditional running.
Origins of the Sport
The first recorded competitive stair race took place on Bastille Day, July 14, 1903, in Paris. Two years later, the Eiffel Tower hosted what’s considered the first known tower race in 1905. The sport remained relatively niche for decades, picking up momentum as iconic skyscrapers around the world began hosting annual events. Today, races take place in buildings across the United States, Europe, and Asia, ranging from 38-floor office towers to supertall skyscrapers with over 1,600 stairs.
The Towerrunning World Association (TWA), founded in 2013 and headquartered in Austria, serves as the international governing body. The TWA sanctions races, assigns difficulty ratings to courses, and organizes world championships. Taipei 101, one of the world’s tallest buildings, has hosted the Towerrunning World Championships with top prizes of 3,000 euros for both men’s and women’s categories.
What a Race Looks Like
Most tower runs are time trials. Runners start individually or in small waves and race up an enclosed stairwell, typically with no windows and limited ventilation. The air gets warmer the higher you climb, and the confined space amplifies the sound of your own breathing. Races last anywhere from about 10 minutes in shorter buildings to 20 or 30 minutes in the tallest ones.
The Empire State Building Run-Up is the sport’s most famous event. Its 86 flights and 1,576 stairs lead to the Observation Deck on the 86th floor. The men’s course record is 9 minutes and 33 seconds, set by Australian Paul Crake in 2003. Austrian Andrea Mayr holds the women’s record at 11 minutes and 23 seconds, set in 2006. Other major races include events at Key Tower in Cleveland (1,221 stairs, 52 floors), One Kansas City Place (902 stairs, 42 floors), and Bangkok’s One Bangkok Tower 4 (1,605 stairs, 49 floors).
How Tower Runners Train
Tower running requires no specialized equipment. Lightweight running shoes with good grip are the standard, and most competitors wear minimal clothing to manage heat in stuffy stairwells. The real preparation happens in training, which blends stair-specific work with broader endurance and strength conditioning.
One key technique decision is whether to take stairs one step at a time or skip a step. Research from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that every subject in a study completed stair climbs faster using the double-step approach. Skipping a step demands significantly more from the ankle and knee muscles used for pushing off, and it burns roughly 70 to 90 more calories per hour. Most competitive tower runners use a double-step technique for the majority of a race, switching to single steps only when fatigue forces a change or when stairs are unusually narrow.
Training programs typically include interval sessions on actual staircases, hill sprints, squats and lunges for leg power, and traditional running for aerobic base. Many elite tower runners also compete in trail running or skyrunning, since the cardiovascular demands overlap heavily.
Calorie Burn and Fitness Benefits
Stair climbing is one of the most calorie-dense activities you can do. Research published in PLOS One measured energy expenditure during stair ascent at roughly 8.5 calories per minute when taking single steps and 9.2 calories per minute when taking two steps at a time. That works out to over 500 calories per hour, which is comparable to vigorous running and significantly higher than cycling at a moderate pace. Because tower running packs that intensity into a much shorter time window, it delivers a large caloric burn in 10 to 30 minutes rather than an hour-long session.
The sport also builds functional leg strength. Climbing stairs loads the glutes, quadriceps, and calves through a full range of motion on every step, making it a form of resistance training layered on top of cardio.
Physical Demands and Risks
Tower running pushes heart rate to near-maximum levels quickly and keeps it there. Unlike a flat road race where you can ease off the pace, gravity provides constant resistance, so there’s no coasting. This makes the sport extremely demanding on the cardiovascular system. Most competitive climbs are short enough that they fall well within safe exercise durations, but the intensity is high enough that participants with underlying heart conditions face real risk.
The enclosed stairwell environment adds another layer. Poor airflow means heat and humidity build up, making it harder for your body to cool itself. Dehydration and overheating are concerns even in races lasting under 15 minutes. Experienced tower runners learn to pace themselves through the middle floors, since going out too hard in the first third of a climb often leads to a dramatic slowdown near the top.
Knee strain is the most common overuse issue. Interestingly, the climbing itself is relatively gentle on joints compared to running downhill, but training that includes descending stairs can be hard on the knees over time. Most tower running events are ascent-only, with participants taking an elevator back down.
Who Can Participate
While the elite level features dedicated athletes competing for prize money and world rankings, most tower running events welcome recreational participants. Charity stair climbs, like the Fight for Air Climb series held in cities across the United States, attract thousands of everyday people each year. These events are as much fundraisers as races, and many participants walk portions of the climb.
If you’re reasonably fit and can handle 20 to 40 minutes of sustained effort, you can finish a tower run. The barrier to entry is low: no special gear, no technical skills, and events in buildings of all sizes. That accessibility, combined with the novelty of racing up a skyscraper, is a big part of why the sport continues to grow worldwide.