The wind blows sheets of rain nearly sideways outside, but it's warm and dry in the big hall at Jefferson Community Center on Beacon Hill. One and two at a time, people come in on this Thursday morning, as many of them have for the past two and a half years. That's when Tim Pretare began teaching a class called PACE, or "People with Arthritis Can Exercise."

The conundrum of arthritis is that people with it tend to avoid exercise, yet physical activity is a key element in staying mobile.

Such reluctance can be overcome with programs such as PACE. Designed to increase joint flexibility, range of motion and overall stamina and maintain muscle strength, the program was developed by The Arthritis Foundation and is taught by certified instructors. It's also suitable for sedentary people just starting an exercise program.

Lucille Henry, 67, gave the class a try because of her doctor's persistent urging that she get more exercise.

"At first," she says, "it was pretty hard, because I was so out of condition." But now not only can she finish the class, she has lost weight and gained energy.

This day's class begins with seated exercise, progressing from shrugs, yawns and head turns to arm curls, reverse crunches and foot taps. Pretare heads off any unsafe moves, but otherwise isn't a stickler for precision: "It's not so important," he said later, "because everybody has different capabilities. They do what feels right to them."

More aerobic, standing moves fill much of the last half-hour.

"Pretend we're a marching band!" Pretare says; in turn, they raise, spin and toss imaginary batons, play flutes, bang drums and crash cymbals.

Then they're on a world tour, swimming across the ocean, paddling a canoe, riding a horse, climbing Mount Rainier and skiing back down.

Making a faux pizza — mix, stir, knead, toss, chop vegetables — brings out the group's good-natured jawing.

"What do you want on your pizza?" Pretare asks.

"Salami!"

"Olives!"

"Lots of mushrooms!"

After grating and spreading the cheese and popping the pizza into the oven, they wait, toes tapping. Pretare hands out paper plates as "slices," which they pass around the circle, left, right, in front, behind the back, under one leg, then the other, over the head.

"Don't drop it!"

"Don't get any pizza sauce in your hair!"

"I think this should be a new Olympic sport."

"When do we eat?"

After a class, says Sue Fujikado, 80, "I can notice my neck is a little looser. I feel like I'm more loosened up in my muscles."

Joan Ng, 69, attends even though she's not sure she has arthritis. "I would wake up with aches and pains, and I thought something like this class would be good for me." She also does the exercises at home. "If I don't keep it up all week, it's not a long-lasting relief."

An 11-week PACE session is just $22. The next round at Jefferson begins Thursday. Classes are also offered at Ravenna-Eckstein, Queen Anne, Madison Park and Hiawatha Community Centers, as well as in Kirkland, Mount Vernon and Silverdale.

Pretare would like to expand the Seattle Parks Department's PACE classes and said as few as three people might be able to get one going. For information, call him at 206-684 4951. (For a brochure on SPD programs, go to www.cityofseattle.net/parks/ and click on Senior Adult Programs.)

After this day's class wraps up, members trickle out of the hall and back into the rain.

Fujikado heads to the VA hospital, where she has volunteered for 13 years, to push wheelchairs and stretchers and run other errands.

Henry finds, generally, she can do more now than before taking the class.

"What the exercise does, it gets a little more oxygen in your system, so you don't feel drowsy and rundown. When I leave that class, I feel like I can do a lot of things — and I do." She's even thinking of joining a water-exercise class, another arthritis-therapy activity.

"What has happened is that by me making parts of my body more usable, I find that it's stabilizing my arthritis — it's not getting progressively worse."

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Home PACE

The Arthritis Foundation's 30-minute video of PACE stretching, strengthening and fitness exercises, led by golfer Jan Stephenson, is $19.50. The foundation also offers Aquatic Programs, free brochures on arthritis and walking and on arthritis and exercise, as well as other programs, videos and brochures. For information, call the Washington-Alaska chapter at 800-542-0295, the national office at 800-283-7800 or go to www.arthritis.org

Get paid to start exercising

The University of Washington is seeking healthy women and men age 65 to 80 who aren't exercising for a study on age and exercise training. Subjects will undergo a six-month cardiovascular training program, with a personal trainer, at a gym in north Seattle, three days a week, 90 minutes a session, with heart-function tests before and after. Participants, who cannot be taking medications other than estrogen or thyroid, will be paid $250 for completing the program. Studies so far have shown an average of 14 percent increase in subjects' VO2 max, a measure of aerobic fitness. For details, call Janet at 206-764-2158.

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. She can be reached at 206-464-8243, mmartin@seattletimes.com or P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. Past columns can be found at www.seattletimes.com/onfitness.