Into the Ocean Blue...

"Amazin'. You showed up on time."

"I don't read near as much as Twilight you know."

"Hey, there'd be no harm in it if you did."

"Actually, there could be. Part of training is getting enough rest. While you're sleeping, the muscles recover from being torn and strained. They do that after exercise anyway, but sleeping speeds up the process a bit because you're almost completely inactive."

"Slow down there! I get the picture."

"I wonder how strong you'd be now if you slept in a little more."

"Well, can't really help that. We got work to do on the farm."

"I guess we should start."

"Right. We're runnin' from our end of the field all the way to the other."

"Get ready to eat my dust!"

"You wish Ms. I only use my wings to move."

When the race was over, Applejack was proven correct. Rainbow Dash was one of the slowest runners she had ever raced. By the time Rainbow caught up with her, she was out of breath and almost to the point of coughing up spit.

"You okay, R.D.? We've only been running for maybe ten minutes."

"Guess you were right after all. I'm not used to this," Rainbow replied between breaths.

"You wanna' stop?"

"I just need to slow down. If we stop right away, it could kill us."

"Come again!?"

"Completely stopping after a run can shock your nerves and heart. It's better to just cool off and lower the pace. It happens more to ponies than other creatures."

"That ain't right!"

"Tell me about it."

"You sure you wanna' keep this up?"

"You can actually run for about the same amount of time after a short break. Our bodies are good at replacing blood and air fairly quick."

The mention of blood made Applejack cringe. It wasn't often she would see someone bleed unless it was an incredibly painful accident. Even Derpy wasn't known to bleed much.

"Yo! Earth to Aj! Anybody up there."

"Uh, Yeah. Sorry."

"Is something up?"

"Nah. Ya' just know me and blood; not really a fan."

"No worries. I always thought it was weird I could bring it up without being too bothered."

"Really? Doesn't surprise me at all, actually?"

"Why's that?"

"You always struck me as one of those alternative lifestyle types."

"You mean one of those weirdos who always surrounds themselves with vampire novels and stuff?"

"Yep."

"No way. I'm not into all that stuff."

"You could be a little bit nicer about it at least. Twilight could be into that for all we know."

"I doubt it, but I get your point."

"You never know."

"Fair enough."

"Anyway, you ready to get back into it?"

"Sure."

In total, half an hour of running went by without much incident. Rainbow stopped a couple times to rest and catch her breath, but her immense recovery time kept her going for a while.

"I think we should call it a day Aj."

"You worn out already?"

"The book Twilight gave me told me to start out with less time."

"I suppose that makes sense."

"I'll probably have a coughing fit today anyway. No point in making that worse."

"How long should we be able to run as a species, anyway?"

"I'd imagine for earth ponies, you guys could run quite a while. Unicorns and Pegasi, I'm not sure about."

"How 'bout Alicorns?"

"I'm not even going to try to figure that out."

"Welp, I'd better get back to the farm. Those apples aren't gonna' come off the tress by themselves."

"Sure they will. Just hire a bunch of poltergeists to do it for you."

Applejack stuck her tongue out in disapproval.

"By the way, what did Twilight say about the royal guard thing?"

"Took a bit of convincing, but she came around. I'm definitely going to join."

"What about the others?"

"I'll probably just mention it in passing."

"Ya' can't really pass that off as a casual thing, Rainbow."

Rainbow sighed remorsefully.

"I know. I just don't want them to be worried."

"Why not wait until you're a bit tougher? If you prove to them you can handle it, they won't worry as much."

"Leave it to you to come up with a solution on the spot."

"Told you I wasn't a hick."

"This must be Rainbow is wrong day."

Applejack and Rainbow burst out laughing at the thought.