Hustle up the 875 (Hancock) 2020 {race recap}

I climbed up the Hancock for the 3rd time a few weeks ago. 

The climb consists of 94 floors of pure stair climbing fun to get to the top of this monolith. 

After completing this race the past 2 years, I felt good about knowing what to expect and how things go for this event. I’m never fully ready to embrace the pain that comes with climbing up stairs for 20 minutes. The best way I describe this to people who ask is that it feels a bit worse than a 5k you are trying to race full out. And you'll likely finish a little faster than the 5k.


I climbed for my work team. We had a ton of first timers this year. Some of them had been practicing daily in the stairwells at work.

We also had an MRC team With 8 first time participants.

We were both in the same wave so it was fun to mingle with MRC + work peeps.

We got in line right when they opened our wave so our wait was quite short. They let each person start every 8 seconds to avoid congestion in the stair ways.

In 2018, I finished in 18.xx, in 2019, I finished in 19:xx. I wondered if this year I’d finish in 20:xx to keep the streak of progressively getting slower alive. 

I felt ok going into the race. I’ve been doing stairs somewhat consistently and also been doing strength circuits. I felt generally more prepared than previous years. 

My plan was the same as the previous years- to keep a very slow waking pace and try not to stop.

As expected around floor 35 my legs or body decided to wave the white flag and decide it was done. (Same as years past. I tend to hit the wall here)  I pushed through and kept going- with my head down so I wouldn’t be seeing the floor progress.

With about 20 floors to go I felt better and they seemed to go fast even though I was still plodding along at the same pace. 

I finished in a predictable 20:xx to keep consistent with the previous years. 60 seconds slower over 94 floors is nothing.

It was a clear day and the view from the top was gorgeous!

I love the medal and colors so much.

I felt like I executed the climb to the best of my abilities but was surprised to finish a bit slower. At times it was hard to pass people on the stairs so this might have contributed to a slightly slower time. Regardless, I’m happy with another finish for this event.

Stair climbing is better with friends. I’m so proud of these folks.

We waited for everyone to finish and then got an elevator back to the bottom.

We went to Centennial for post climb beer and food. And the obligatory cider and medal pic.


Zé wanted to wear my medal for #medalmonday celebrations despite the fact he did not contribute to my training at all for this. He hates stairs and inclines (unlike his late bro). 

The volunteers are awesome! The race is well organized. It’s such a cool, different event and I highly recommend giving something like this a try since it will force you to go out of your comfort zone to incorporate hills and stairs into your life. The view from the top is also pretty sweet- and perhaps even better since the way to get up there wasn’t easy. 

What’s next?

• Take the bridge
• Atlanta 13.1
• Presidential Towers climb
• Shamrock shuffle