Disproving that an entire generation has been lost to the Xbox and the ice box, nearly 2,000 children arose early Saturday for a completely self-propelled morning in Piedmont Park. And not a cheek went unflushed in the 22nd annual Junior Peachtree Road Race.

"It's very, very fun," said Atlanta's Maddy Wetterhall, 12, the first kid to cross the finish line this steamy a.m. "I just love running."

Tami Chappell/AJC Special (ENLARGE)

Enisa Bajic of Decatur dumps water on her head during the Junior Peachtree Road Race at Piedmont Park on Saturday.

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Furthermore: "I don't play video games," she said.

The scene for a Junior Peachtree is quite different than that for July 4th's grown- up Peachtree. It's a fraction of the distance, 3 kilometers (just under two miles). The field is children 7 to 12 years old. Plus, this year, the kids got to run in Piedmont Park — on the asphalt — whereas the adults have been banished from finishing their 10K run at the drought-stressed park.

There are other, more subtle differences.

Like footwear. You'll not find a lot of fancy running shoes in this event.

"Let's see," said Atlanta's Michael Persons, "we've got Chuck's for one" — old-school high tops on 7-year-old son Parker — "and duct tape for the other," holding together 11-year-old son Stone's sneakers.

And such is the emphasis on fun that Maddy, a soccer player when she's not running out front, had no idea what her finishing time was. Didn't really care, either.

The question many parents may ask is, just how do you get a child up on a weekend morning to go sweat in the park? One mother who asked to remain nameless said she dangled a new iPod as a reward for her daughter training for a month and then finishing the race Saturday.

Others were self-motivated. Sterling Floyd, 10, and his family had to arise at their home in Rome especially early to get downtown for the 9 a.m. start.

"He just wanted to be a part of it," said his father Daryl Floyd, a marathoner and half-marathoner himself. "He has seen me do it plenty of times and said, 'Sure, I'll try it.'"

So how did it go? "It was pretty hard," Sterling said. Would he do it again? "Yeah, maybe."

And another generation of runners is born, maybe.