Berserker

On most Friday mornings, David and I meet up with our good friend and trainer whose name is--wait for it!--Knute Keeling. (Doesn't he just sound like a guy who would kick your ass and laugh while kicking it? He's actually a really sweet guy, but he's also very, very tough and, truly, the best trainer ever.)

Like David and me, he descends from Viking stock and loves to devise new Viking-like ways to torture us into fitness. One of his favorite workouts to inflict on us is called the Berserker. It involves lots of sprinting up stairs, boxing, and push-ups, whilst shouting things like "Victory!" and "Valhalla!!!"

According to Wikipedia, Berserkers (or berserks) were Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word "berserk." So you get the picture. The potential hurl-factor is high. But every time I make it through the workout, I feel so good. Here's a poem in honor of Fridays with Knute:

Once we were Vikings

but now we're Californians

of a certain age

(not an old age, mind you) and

we fight the evil

hordes known as Time, Gravity,

and, let's face it: Fat.