Morning Runs

Summer was fast approaching and the delicious smelling Russian Olive trees near the river that comes and goes were blowing soft wafts of sweet Spring time smells over the whole castle grounds. The kids were anxious for school to get out even though it was still nearly a month away. Grandma was preparing for the important end of year exams and the children were nervous about the comprehensive exam she had waiting for them on June 8. Even though they wanted to do well, every once in a while you could find one or two of them out at the pool swimming and hanging out They usually took some of their notes and school books with the intent to study but everyone knew it was just for show.
Grandma decided that even with everything going on with the exams, she was going to start training for a ½ marathon. She had the wizard measure out a ½ marathon (about 13 miles) around the castle grounds and she posted a sign up sheet. Oddly enough all the genie workers signed up first. All of them- dozens and dozens of Arabic names filled the list followed closely by the Leprechauns family and Isaac and Leify Nosompos. Soon all the families in the castle had signed up, except, of course, the fish families. Grandma promised them a swimming race later in the summer.
Isaac and Leify decided to get up in the morning early and go practice running on the castle lawn. The very next morning they got up before dawn, put their running shoes on and headed out to the lawn only to find to their dismay that Joey the pirate, Patrick the Leprechaun and Tyler the Carpet race driver were already there and running.
“Well, we’ll just have to get up earlier”
What followed was a week of extremely early mornings for the ambitious boys in the castle, turning into earlier and earlier mornings until by Friday when Isaac has set his alarm for 3:00 in the morning, he came to himself and said “forget it, I’m just going at 6:00”. That was the end of the extreme mornings but not the morning runs. The boys were motivated and excited and running in the morning seemed to help them with their studies. The girls went to the GYM after school and ran on the treadmills there. It was more convenient and they could just jump off and use the bathroom if they needed to. The moms and dads in the castle were all getting healthier and in better shape and even Grandma Dragon lost about 30 pounds. Her scaly back was leaner and shinier than ever and she found she could breath better fire when needed (which was never) but she still enjoyed the morning runs. Every once in a while, she got running so fast she just took off flying and took a little spin around the Lake and castle. The mornings were beautiful for running.