A sudden ringing of small, metal bells shook Falcon from her dreams, and forced her to crawl out of the tangle of homemade quilts on her bed. She reached over to the little brass clock - standing on her bedside table on it’s stubby legs - and switched off the ringing mechanism. She yawned as the dreams faded and reality set in again. She was in her bedroom, on the second story of her plain home. It was still dark outside, so she couldn’t see her family’s cotton fields, but she knew they were there, along with the heard of fluffy sheep.  
Then, she clumbsily stepped off of the bed, and went about her morning stretching routine. She performed the same routine every morning. She would carefully stretch her leg muscles, her core, her neck, and finally do some prancing in place, and rolling back and forth to warm up.  
This prep work was all very important, because every morning, she would leave the house as soon as the sky began to lighten. Once the land was visible - enough - Falcon would leave the house for a run around the outskirts of her hometown of Gallup.  
She glanced her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and turned to look at her cutie mark for a moment. It was a golden silhouette of a falcon, with lighter golden lines streaking back and away from it’s body. To her it meant one thing: speed.  
She quickly pulled a comb through her short, pink hair, and glanced at the unorganized array of accesories littering her bathroom counter. She had four small holes in her left ear which an assortment of earings usually decorated, and accompanied her eyebrow piercing on the same side of her face. There were also silver bangles scattered across the bathroom - and several other surfaces in her house - along with a few stretchy wrist bands.  
Of course, she would never wear any of these accesories while training. They were distracting, unprofessional, and most important: she couldn’t risk losing one outside where it would never be seen again. After a quick breakfast, she finally decided it was light enough to leave the house, and began her brisk morning jog.
 
Her breath billowed away from her face as a thin fog, and some of the moisture clung to her fur. Her coat was pale, and covered with haphazard chocolate spots. She had inherited light brown hooves from her mother, and slightly-shaggy fetlocks from her dad. She made sure to keep this long hair around her hooves carefully trimmed, so it didn’t get too dirty or distracting while running.  
“Speaking of distractions…” she thought to herself, as she made her way around the outer edges of the town’s fairgrounds. The local racing track was on one side of the fairgrounds, and that was where she frequently trained. She had been at the track when she first noticed the new unicorn in town. Now, she saw her again, walking away from her tent and into the town proper. Yesterday, Falcon had seen the unicorn set up, and welcome ponies into her tent.  
Falcon, personally, didn’t believe in psychic powers. She had grown up on a cotton farm, with three siblings, and knew that anything worthwhile had to be earned through time and sweat. Sitting around thinking was supposed to give a pony divine knowledge about the future? No. Falcon knew exactly what her future was as she felt her hooves rythmically fall upon the familiar dirt road.  
She knew that she was the fastest pony in Gallup, and faster than anypony in all of the surrounding towns. She was going to use that to get ahead in life, the only way she knew how, and all of the training she’d been doing would finally pay off. At the end of this week, ponies from all around would come to Gallup to attend a grand event. The town was hosting a qualifying race, and winners from this would go on to the tryouts at Rainbow Falls, to determine who would compete in the Equestria Games! If Falcon could just win this local race, she knew that she could get into one of those training teams that grooms athletes for the Games. She had heard all kinds of things about how those teams are real professionals, and they can really work wonders. They could turn any good athlete into gold-medal champions.  
That was her future, she thought as she leveled her gaze back at the blue and white unicorn. “Although,” she thought as the mare’s flank disappeared from her sight, “she is pretty cute…and I guess she spends a lot of time pulling a cart.”  
The rest of that morning’s jog was spent drifting between thoughts of joining a professional racing team, and thoughts about how toned that unicorn showpony’s legs must be. All in all, it was an enjoyable morning.