If you’ve ever taken the stairs up the Eiffel Tower, you’ll know it’s fun and not too tiring as long as you take your time. For the second annual Verticale de la Tour Eiffel, 100 sporty types will be running up nearly 300 metres (1,665 steps!)

Will they be able to beat the 2015 record of 7 minutes and 50 seconds set by Piotr Łobodziński? Why not go along and see – it’s really not far from our hotels!

Here’s all the info.

A photo posted by @dina_yj on Feb 26, 2016 at 3:03am PST

Those taking part in the Verticale de la Tour Eiffel are currently training so they’ll be ready for this ingenious event. Usually, running 300 metres would be a breeze, except here they’ll be doing it vertically.

It’s certainly an out-of-the-ordinary event – the race is held in the evening between 8 and 10pm and the stairs are completely open to the elements. There’s no other run like it.

At 8.20pm on the 17th March 2016, the 60 selected ‘amateurs’ will start their ascension, one every 30 seconds. Fifty were selected at random and ten by ‘wild card‘ thanks to their inspirational stories.

The 40 ‘elite’ athletes start their race at 9.15pm (one every minute).

Here’s how it looked in 2015 (i.e. tiring)…

Feel free to go down and watch on 17th March 2016. As you know, the Eiffel Tower is on the Left Bank and easy to get to from our hotels. You could even stop off for a delicious cocktail at the Clos Belle Juliette to finish off the night!

Website: www.verticaletoureiffel.fr

Facebook: here

Twitter: twitter.com/EcoTraildeParis

Instagram: instagram.com/ecotraildeparisidf

Certains y grimperont de nuit ! #Trail80km #ecotrail

A photo posted by ecotraildeparisidf (@ecotraildeparisidf) on Feb 6, 2016 at 3:58am PST