Vernon Pitsker misses some sights and sounds when his daily run is rained out.
When El Nino storms forced the resident of Irvine, Calif., to forgo his daily run at dawn, he missed the sweet aroma of glazed doughnuts when he passes Costco Wholesale, the soothing dance of waves on the beaches along Pacific Coast Highway, the sometimes startling presence of egrets and herons near the Santa Ana River Trail, and conversations with running buddies that pass the minutes and miles.
A health club workout had none of those pleasures. But when El Nino was having its way, Pitsker, 55, strapped on a flotation vest and did deep-water running in the outdoor pool at Los Caballeros Racquet and Sports Club.
When a big storm was raging on a weekend, health clubs and other recreational gyms were packed with dedicated outdoors exercisers who had headed indoors.
“We do have a unique lifestyle here in California,” said Christine Grocki, program director at the Lakeshore Towers Sporting Club.
“We’re used to doing everything outdoors. We hate when Mother Nature interferes with our sports or exercise activity.”
Grocki said people are quickly learning how to transfer outside activities to an indoor setting.
“When we’ve had heavy rain, those have been some of our busiest days,” Grocki said. “All of a sudden, we had to ask ourselves, `What are we going to do with all these people?’ The basketball courts were just jammed.”
Cyclists, mountain bicyclists and triathletes take indoor cycling classes, Grocki said, while runners pound the oval track and paddlers use the rowing machines. At certain designated times, in-line skaters share the track with runners and walkers, as they do on the multi-use coastal bike path on a bright day. One basketball court becomes an indoor volleyball court for players who would rather not spike and save on a rainy, windy beach.
“The swimmers swim in our outdoor pool,” Grocki said. “They don’t really care if it rains because they’re wet anyway and we don’t have the problem of lightning.”
Some of the mountain-biking regulars at Bike Beat, a bicycle store in Anaheim, climb the indoor faux rock walls of Alpine Experience several miles away, said Bob Anderson, a partner at the bike shop. Forced indoors by mud and unsafe terrain in regional parks, they choose indoor rock climbing because it’s a social activity like mountain biking, he said.
Other cyclists use indoor trainers to turn their road bike into stationary equipment with varying degrees of resistance to simulate hill climbing, Anderson said. From his perspective, “it’s kind of boring and it’s too much like work, sitting there.”
Outside an open garage door in Tustin on a rainy weekend, El Nino is playing a torrential drum beat. Inside, Kathy Casey, 41, is pedaling on her Trek road bike mounted on a Blackburn trainer, which spins a percussive descant to the storm.
Casey is outfitted as if she were riding outside. She has clipped her bike shoes onto the pedals so that she can push and pull seamlessly on the bike that has become an extension of her body. The sleeves of her T-shirt are cut away for more ventilation. Padded bike shorts make an hour of riding on a sliver of a saddle comfortable.
With this, Casey sometimes just lets her mind wander as she watches people walk or drive by. She’ll also visualize one of her riding routes and press on the levers to increase or decrease resistance and simulate a real ride.
On any cool, bright weekend somewhere in Joshua Tree, Malibu or Big Bear, Audrey Bergman might hang on with her fingers and shoe-sheathed toes to a boulder large enough to crush a house. There, the Fullerton woman breathes fresh, clean air.
Not this time. Instead, she is at Alpine Experience in Anaheim, where she has become accustomed to the smell of sweaty socks and rubber tires and the easygoing atmosphere created by people who refuse to be typical gym rats.
It is raining outside and Bergman, 31, can’t climb real rocks.
If it has started to pour by the time she wakes up on Saturday, she gets on the phone. “I’ll call up everyone very early in the morning and try to get them to come here. They all hang up on me,” she said, laughing.
Harnessed and assisted by a friend, she scales the walls of the indoor rock-climbing gym with the agility of a spider. She’ll play climbing games with others to keep boredom at bay. Faux rock-climbing walls are encrusted with gnarly, colorful handholds that look like enlarged semi-precious stones.
She and her friends pick a color to follow. They put their hands and feet only on the holds of that color as they make their way to the top or they’ll play a game of add-on, in which they take turns adding on two steps to a route to get to the top.
Bergman would rather be outdoors, but making indoor climbing fun makes up for not being closer to nature.
“Besides, it hurts more if you fall outdoors,” she said.
