esrosedotblog

INUNDATED

Last week, suddenly, new people started to appear at the early gym hours.

At 4:30 AM, we usually have Joe and Dan on the first floor and Youseff, Gene and another guy we don't talk to on the second ceevee floor.

Plus a few stragglers now and then. Twice a week the fan people, a couple who insist on fans for their workouts. A long battle over this ended with their turning the fans down on themselves and turning them off when they left the floor.

We have settled many turf disputes and have an uneasy truce.

Then, last week, these new people showed up. Both floors. What gives?

Word had already come to us that the 24 Hour Fitness in Cathedral City, a few miles away, had closed.

We never grasped the implications for our PS Golds. New people.

New people who don't know the "rules". Whose bike is whose. What time the changeovers occur. The fans! Are any of them fan obsessed?

Then guys on the first floor who come later reported the same tide moving in on them.

There was a guy in bare feet and sandals. Jesus God.

People had to wait to use some equipment.

The word is that during the day, the gym is "insane".

We even saw one newbie with a Trainer this morning at five. There are no trainers at five. Were. There are now.

I have to admit that the new crowd is rather timid. They must have a tight management at 24 Hours. Not enough to save the business, perhaps, but tight enough to keep the crowd in its place.

This morning I asked John, the desk guy, if Golds "bought" these people's memberships. He said "no, but they are selling 3 months for $20/month and that has sucked all these people towards us. I think that is half price but I don't know.

I have a life time membership that we got when we moved here. Times were hard for Golds so they had a deal. Sign up for two, maybe three, years for 99.00/year and you could keep that rate for life. We kept it. The rates have skyrocketed since then for everyone else.

Some few of us left from those days would do anything to preserve that rate. Even near death, I would have someone ferry me over to renew on May 15th.

So that is the story.

Change. A constant.

There is one benefit. The tide that has come up the beach and stranded all these 24 hour people also brought a bona-fide ten. A guy who is so beautiful that I can hardly stand straight. He arrives almost exactly at the time that I do and does a prolonged change from street to gym clothes which look as though they might have been designed just for him.

Now that is some change that I can go along with.

This won't last long, either.

People flow in with the sales and then flow out when they are over. There are two other gyms to go to. But none are of the 24 hour variety as their closed gym and our Golds are.

This is the early crowd. They might actually stick.

Labels: gym