"You could have one person at a time take a break from running and read to the others, was the idea. It might not work in practice, though."

"I wasn't thinking of the indignity so much as the shop time but maybe one of us will get it as an assignment."

"I'd actually be more worried about taking up hallway space in case anyone needs to run past in a hurry." 

"Pretty hard to stop if we suddenly notice we're running straight towards something."

"I think the hallways are wide enough provided we're single file but stopping may be a concern, yeah."

"In a couple weeks we can switch to doing stairs, stairs are torture and it's not at all hard to stop if you suddenly need to."

"Doing stairs for mana deliberately though will mean we get good at stairs faster and get less from the required stairs trips."

"But it'll make passing periods less of a squeeze."

"I've heard that if you manage to gain a lot of weight in here and good luck with that then you get more mana for all the additional you you're carrying around, so you could try to keep up with your increasing athleticism that way."

"Seems like it'd be easier to just strap some metal plates to my back, and - that's still a bad idea, right, you get more mana but it slows you down."

"I think you can probably just do exercises that you don't actually need to run away from mals, when you get older. Like, I dunno, pull-ups. I just don't want to be the slowest kid around in three weeks."

"Oh, it's probably pretty easy to install pull-up bars in the rooms. One advantage of them being so narrow." 

"Horrible wall sitting takes longer to get to the point where it's horrible but is just as horrible after that when you're in good shape, and you can do homework in the meantime."

"I wonder what happens if you install a pullup bar and then your neighbor dies and your room expands."

"Probably falls. But I still feel like being good at running is not the thing to trade for more mana generation."

"I'm actually kind of unpersuaded that endurance matters for escaping mals very much? Reflexes do but you don't train those by running, and peak sprinting speed might but I don't think jogging trains that either."

"Horrible wall sitting?"

"I think this probably depends on how sad your cardiovascular system is starting out. We can start with sprints if you want, though?"

"Oh, I introduced everyone else to horrible wall sitting earlier, Bella, it is an exercise done by lowering yourself to a sitting position with your back to the wall and no chair, and it is very horrible."

"It doesn't sound very horrible but I suppose the worst exercises don't."

"Oh, just try it." 

"I will, but we aren't near a wall."

"Sooo, do any of us have plans after dinner, or should I start working ahead on homework and durable trade goods production alone in my room."

"French syntax, if that works for Julian."

"Exploring the library, got it. Down for that."