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 Pinkhouse:
Pals Outside Workouts
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, June
15, 2008
Story appeared in SCENE section, Page L3
In the pre-dawn stillness, Sacramento's River Park neighborhood
is bathed in street-lamp glow and serenaded by the warbling
of birds flitting tree to tree. But halfway down Camellia
Avenue, at a pink-hued ranch house owned by 89-year-old Paul
Camerer, tranquility ceases. The garage door is open, fluorescent
overhead lights blaze and 10 people sit astride bicycles attached
to stationary wind trainers.
They pedal and breathe hard while a giant screen displays
their fluctuating heart rates and gauges the percentage of
fitness thresholds.
Forget Neighborhood Watch; this is neighborhood workout.
Three mornings a week, at the painfully early hour of 5:30,
Camerer's abode transforms into the Pinkhouse Garage Gym,
where River Park denizens are invited to sweat and socialize
using state-of- the-art heart-rate technology to build fitness.
It is the brainchild of Camerer, a lifelong runner and cyclist,
and his Camellia Avenue neighbor Sally Edwards, 60. Yes, she
is that Sally Edwards - former Ironman Triathlon masters world
record holder, founder of the Fleet Feet running store franchise,
noted fitness author and entrepreneur.
About 20 people belong to the Pinkhouse Gym. (Camerer's wife,
Helen, is gaga over pink.) Participants range from a 28-year-old
mother of a newborn to three octogenarians; from a diabetic
woman new to exercise, to Doug Arnold, a Western State 100
finisher and endurance athlete.
Though body types and reasons for working out vary, the communal
nature, the so-called bonding effect, is an irresistible attraction.
Plus, it's free of the monthly dues of commercial gyms. (Pinkhouse
members do pay a one-time $50 charge for a heart-rate monitor.)
"People can get up, walk a block or two or ride their bike
a short ways, and they're at the gym," Edwards says. "It's
great for women as a safe place to exercise. The whole concept
is to get America fit without leaving the neighborhood."
Attendance fluctuates, depending on work schedules and alarm
clock reliability.
On this morning, the spandex-clad group starts breezing in
even before Camerer can back his late-model Buick out of the
garage. These aren't exactly chipper people at this hour,
but many greet each other using workout nicknames that will
appear on a large video screen once the session commences.
Among the regulars over the eight years of the gym's existence
is "Call Girl," a.k.a. Marsha Arnold, 52, a nurse who usually
calls out the exertion levels during the hour long indoor
rides.
Continued here...
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