I've never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs

Murphy is an athlete.  From her daily runs with me, to her sheer delight in leaping and running for a tennis ball, she expressed all the attributes of what  makes athleticism fascinating.  Discipline, joy, redemption, celebration.  For years she would beat me to the front door waiting to run.  And after running at least 3 miles a day, she would still want a half hour of ball throw, where she would chase the tennis ball at full speed, pick it up, and return it, repeat it again, and again, and again.  When we did this her tail would wag constantly.  As she dropped the ball, she would intensely stare at me until I picked it up.  By the time I was in my throwing motion, she was already out in the "field" ready to search, find, and return.  

Aside from her daily athletic habits, she also embraced every moment outside.  She'd hurl herself off steep slopes into rivers, swimming after a stick, run for hours while we cross-country skied, plow through deep snow as we snowshoed.  Of course, Murphy did those activities because the humans she loves were there, but really, if I am honest with myself, Murphy did them because she loved how it felt.  Anyone owned by a lab can describe what I call a "mad dog."  Where, for seemingly no reason, the lab tucks her butt aerodynamically, front legs go straight out, and the running, madly, wildly, around trees, bushes, human bodies begins.  To me, the observer, it looks like pure, wild joy.  Absorbed in how wonderful her body feels, connecting with the air, the smells, sounds.  It must be a way of expressing for a lab how we feel when we enter the so-called "zone" while running, cycling, or skiing.  Everything is working, all systems "go!"

I sometimes describe Murphy as one of those older, aging athletes who refuses to "go down," to retire.  In her mind, she is still that determined dog who will chase the tennis ball into Crystal Lake all day, even if the consequence is her tail will barely move the day after.  These days she picks up her tennis ball and calculates how many runs she has left.  She stares at the hills, lets out a sigh, and begins plodding up the trail, one more time.  She is, after all, an athlete.

Many of you know I enjoy sports.  I clung to every moment of drama watching Lance Armstrong pound up the Alps.  I urged a Williams sister to find another ounce of energy to launch a blistering first serve.  I stand in my back yard like a kid, mimicking Ichiro's gorgeous stance at the plate.  And while I have enjoyed my sports moments, they come, of course, with the taint of drugs and scandal over whether any professional or amateur athlete has accomplished their feats without the aid of "performance enhancing drugs."  Quite frankly, Lance Armstrong's: "I have never tested positive of drugs," fools I suspect, no one.  It merely says: "I have never been caught."  Reading the sports page is like reading a sordid tabloid. 

 

Then there is Murphy.  Every stretch of her muscles has been out of joy.  Every time she has slipped, or fallen, or missed the ball, she tried again not because of a big pay check (or even treats), but because she simply enjoys it.  Even now, as she is older and her hind legs hurt, she still tucks in her butt, and tries to give a good "mad dog."  A really good athlete understands that it is all about the joy.

Murphy's day.