You Can Step On the Mean Ones

What is there about chasing after a slimy, saliva-covered, squeaky ball that holds such fascination for my Golden Retriever? Exhaustion is never a reason to stop, nor is the pain and bleeding from having ripped up the pads on the bottom of her paws. On occasions too numerous to count, she has been so laser-locked on retrieving a ball, that she has run head first into walls, cement columns, and the occasional Mack truck--hard enough that lesser beings would have been knocked out cold for days;  but she just shakes her little head and continues on, grabbing the ball, and bringing it back for more, while trotting on temporarily wobbly legs. We’ve even joked that if Comet were dead and buried two weeks, and someone walked over to her grave and squeaked one of her favorite balls, she’d find a way back just so she could run it down one more time. One thing my dog is not, is self-aware. What on earth would drive anyone to continue zooming around well beyond the point of pain? She needs to learn how to pace herself and enjoy life a little.

When I call Comet’s behavior an addiction, unlike most other things I write, this is not exaggeration.  A friend of ours who is a psychologist said it’s like chocolate for you or me (mostly me). But frankly, I don’t think I’d come back from the grave for anything less than Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate With Chili--or maybe a good Godiva truffle...or Ghirardelli’s Dark and Sea Salt Caramel bar, and maybe the Limited Edition Dark Peppermint Bark Bar...and in a pinch, I’d settle for Junior Mints, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, or a Snicker bar...but not M&Ms because there is nowhere near enough chocolate in that pitiful little candy shell, nor a Tootsie Roll (I don’t even know whether that is supposed to BE chocolate, but it is brown and it has sugar in it)--because if there’s any drive stronger in my little brain than the Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate With Chili Drive, it’s the Nap Drive, and death does seem like the ultimate excuse for a good nap. My will specifies that I am to be buried with a moderate assortment of Lindt bars and Godiva truffles, because I am way too lazy to come back and haunt anyone just to get some chocolate.

Which, by the way, is why I run--the part about chocolate that is, not the part about coming back from the dead. But truth be told, I also run because I enjoy it. No, really. I love being outside running in the warm, fresh air and sunshine, even when it’s rainy, cloudy, dark, or bitterly cold. I’ve run in rain, snow, sleet, and hail, with temps as low as the teens, although since moving to Florida, I’ve decided to draw the line at running in anything colder than about 64 degrees. There really is so much to love about running, including many well-documented benefits (meaning I saw them in print somewhere):
1. It’s great for your overall mental health, and it helps you feel good about yourself (except when people twice my age blitz past me like I was walking...backwards).
2. It burns fat and improves many other aspects of physical health: it’s good for your heart, helps with blood pressure, lessens the effects of asthma, and increases bone density, cures male pattern baldness and warts, decreases the buildup of earwax, and is a good substitute for flossing.

So what if running leaves me a little tired and sore sometimes?  Bursitis is no reason to cry--most of the time. Jogging with that air cast after I broke my foot was a little inconvenient, but as I’ve said, I crave the outdoors. I’ve only occasionally been chased by dogs, and that really mean one was in a stroller anyway. And what does it matter if I had to wear dark purple nail polish on my toes for 12 months straight because it was the only thing dark enough to cover the bruises...and later, the slightly unsightly look of the old dead nails growing out and sometimes falling off? Midnight Plum is lovely. And it’s really no big deal that I can now no longer sit for more than 11 or 12 minutes in a row without sharp stabbing pains exploding like lightning through my legs and butt.  Once I get going on a good run, having popped three or four Advil, the pain more or less subsides. And then my Nap Drive kicks in. Life doesn’t get much better than this! Eat a pound or two of chocolate, pop a few Advil, run a few miles, and take a big fat nap. If only Comet was a little more self-aware, like me....