The Chapel Hill-Carrboro area got through most of Hurricane Florence with little more than some stout winds knocking down a few tree limbs and intermittent rain from Thursday through midday Sunday.

Then Sunday night, the heavens opened up and last tentacles of the storm unleashed torrents of rain across the area.

Seven PAX gathered in the rainy gloom outside Kenan Stadium at 0545, with Uzi and Beano wrapping an EC ruck down and back up Laurel Hill Road.

After a quick warmup (SSH x 20, windmills x 10, squats x 10 and arm circles x 10 front and back), we moseyed amid the steady rain and the random rumble of thunder to the Bell Tower parking garage at the west end of the stadium.

The main event: The Escalator.

At the bottom of the garage we did six cadence-count merkins.

Then we ran up to the next landing and added a second exercise, doing six diamond merkins and following it with six more merkins.

And so on up the garage, and by the eighth landing we did jump lunges, goblet squats, 30-second low-plank holds, plank jacks, mountain climbers, Carolina dry docks, diamond merkins and merkins.

Then with three levels left to the top, we ran up those without stopping, then returned to the ground floor for the grand finale, all of the above with six burpees to start it off.

Luckily we finished just as a torrent of rain hit the area, hopefully everyone making it home safe and sound.

Uzi remarked that without any immediate lightning threats, running up Laurel Hill it was actually rather fun and a memorable experience.

“Amazing to see the power of nature,” he remarked.

Added Slug, “There’s something liberating about being so wet you can’t get any wetter.”