After running 50 laps Chris finally gave Avalon the go ahead to stop running. Avalon walked up to Chris with a bated breath and said,
"Why… So many… Laps…"
"First of all," Chris began, undeterred by the breathless uma, "It builds endurance. Better get used to it because that's the first thing we'll be doing every morning."
"Secondly…" Chris stood up and grabbed one of Avalon's arms.
"For this."
Before the exhausted Avalon could react, Chris went behind the little uma, placed one of her legs on her back, pushing her to the ground, and pulling on her arm as hard as she could.
"WAAAH!"
"Quit whining, it'll be over soon."
"BUT WH-AAAAAHHHH!!!"
"One more, hold on."
"WAI- UWAAAHHH!!!"
"There we go." And Chris let go of Avalon's arm.
"Ow… what was that fo-" bit before Avalon could finish, she felt a tug at her other arm.
"Now for the other side." Chris smiled sadistically.
Avalon's face paled.
"W-wait. Hold on a-WAAAAAHHH!!!!"
"Don't worry kid, there's a reason for this."
"What reaaAAAAAAAAHHH"
Ahh this is bliss, Chris had never had so much fun bullying kids.
"Last one, I promise."
"Uuu…" Avalon stopped shouting and shakily braced herself.
But that silence didn't last long.
"OWWWWAAAAAHHHH!!!"
—
After wallowing in pain for a short while, Avalon got off the ground and looked to her trainer with teary eyes.
"Why would you do that???"
She looked like a stray cat, the type of face that made you want to protect it. But Chris was unfazed and said,
"Well, You're incredibly flexible. From the times I've seen you run that much has become clear to me. The problem however…"
"Is that you either don't use it, have no experience in using it, or you simply don't have the talent for it."
Avalon took that in and asked a follow up question, "So what was the stretching for?"
"That one might take a little longer to explain but in short, it has something to do with your flexibility." Chris responded much more cooperatively than yesterday.
"Anyway, what we're going to work on first is your running form."
"My running form?"
"It's terrible."
"Ghk!" Avalon felt a metaphorical arrow pierce her heart.
"Your back is too straight and you barely lean to reduce air resistance. Can you even be called an Umamusume?"
"Ugh!" Strike two.
"If you keep running like that, you'll lose on your debut race by 10 lengths…"
"Kh!" Three strikes and she's out folks!
Avalon clutched her chest in betrayal and said, "I get it already!" Which managed to get a "heh." out of Chris but she hid it as fast as it happened.
"Anyway, I want you to run another lap, this time I want you to lower your center of gravity as low as you can go. It should make you way faster if you do it right."
"Think of it like becoming a spear."
Avalon didn't say anything back in fear of getting insulted again, and walked up to the course.
'Lower my center of gravity… hmm…' Avalon thought back to all the media she had consumed related to umamusume in her past life.
And then a very popular umamusume came to her head. A certain uma that redefined the entire structure of racing simply by doing what she loves.
The gray monster, Oguri Cap.
From what Chris had told her, one of her body's advantages was her flexibility, and the pain she just suffered was to support that.
So why not try out a running style that defines a legend. There were a few issues with it however.
First of all, she only has references of Oguri's running style from the manga and anime, the game's running animation was the same for every umamusume.
Secondly, Avalon's stats and physique obviously weren't even close to what Oguri's were.
And finally, probably the most glaring issue that hasn't been said yet… Avalon doesn't have the blessings of the three goddesses.
The most powerful and integral force for all umamusume. And Avalon didn't have it.
She didn't have that blessed talent or sudden inspiration growth that happens once a year, like it or not she had to train the good old way.
It did have an upside however.
Avalon doesn't suffer the consequences of training beyond her prime years (those being junior-senior). More on that later, however.
Back on track, Avalon decided to give it her best shot. Sure she may have been a little shorter than Oguri, not have any of her god given talent and barely have anything to copy off of…
But that's nothing a little indomitable human spirit can't fix. Or well, uma now but whose counting.
Avalon locked her focus on her center of gravity and began to run.
Fwoosh!
At first she ran as she always had, horrendously. But as the lap continued she began to slowly lower her stance, gaining speed as her stride grew wider.
'Woah.' Avalon's eyes widened, 'I cover so much more ground, and I feel so much less fatigued.'
All that from simply lowering her stance? Talk about a jackpot.
Chris watched from the side as Avalon continually went lower and lower, almost touching the ground at some point.
'She probably feels like she's gliding right now.' Chris examined, 'any lower with her skill level though and she's going right through the support fence.'
Chris was about to warn her but then stopped herself and thought,
'Eh, she'll live. Worst case scenario she sprains an ankle and I get to slack off for a few weeks.'
And not even a moment later,
CRASH-!
Avalon went barreling toward the support fence and crashed into it full force. The surrounding early riser umamusume watched in shock.
Then Chris casually wheeled over and called out with an overly monotone voice.
"You good?"
Avalon, who was currently sitting in her own crater like a certain dragon ball character, lifted up her arm with a thumbs up and said.
"Yup… all good."
Then she stood up, brushed off all the dust on her tracksuit, and walked over to Chris like nothing had happened.
"I'm surprised you're not injured. What is your luck…" Chris was a little disappointed.
"Hm?" Avalon tilted her head, "Oh, I rarely ever get hurt or sick. I'm completely fine."
Now would be a good time to talk about another one of Avalon's cheat abilities that she got. Like insight.
It's called Timeless.
As someone who wasn't blessed by the three goddesses, Avalon would be more susceptible to injury and aging, so obviously she had to find her own way to counter that.
And lucky enough, she got an upgraded version called Timeless.
What it does is pretty simple.
Avalon, just like any other umamusume, will no longer age at a certain point but to add on to that, the chance of her having a bad condition is close to nothing.
So like she said, the chance of her sustaining an injury or contracting an illness is close to 1%.
"Well I guess that's a good thing…" Chris said, "Anyway, you ran too low and went flying. That's the long and short of it."
Chris pulled another cigarette from her pocket and lit it in a flawless motion. It was rather impressive considering she only had one arm.
"When you lower your center of gravity, your acceleration and velocity increase, right? That's what you probably felt…"
"But at some point, as you go lower, your range of control starts to spiral and an accident is almost guaranteed."
"However, there is a spot where it's just right. Where you can maximize both speed and control."
Avalon listened to Chris' explanation and she found no faults in her logic. Nodding along as she continued.
"The spot is different for everyone though. For people who aren't as flexible don't go as low as those who are. Which is also why umas who are extremely flexible go down historically."
'That makes sense. Teio and Oguri were extremely flexible and they were (technically) the best of their generation.' Avalon confirmed with what she remembered.
"The plan was to teach you this before going on to actually training your body. What's the point of being the strongest with no technique behind it right?"
"And you seem to at least know how to shift your center of gravity pretty well so this works out for me."
Avalon understood about 60% of Chris' explanation but overall she understood the general point.
"So what's the name of this running style?"
"No clue. This was purely my own theorised style, I never named it since I couldn't use it myself." Chris shook her head.
"Hmm…" Avalon put her finger to her chin in thought, "what does it look like when perfected? to you, at least."
"An odd question." Chris remarked, "But if I had to say, it's like a work of art being painted in real time. Infinitely overlapping itself."
"Hmm… Art… Infinite… Oh!" Avalon slapped her fist into her other cupped hand, "How about, The Golden Ratio."
"Golden Ratio? Like the mathematical formula?"
"Nah, like spin from Jojos."
"What?"
"Dont worry about it…" Avalon forgot what year it was sometimes.
—
END OF CHAPTER
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