As promised, Yuel let Nia skip club practice today. Instead, she had to exercise.
"Okay, I see you're ready." Yuel nodded in approval as he apprised Nia's clothes. She was wearing a T-shirt, short pants, and sneakers. A fitting getup for a workout.
Honestly, I was half-expecting her to come with some impractical getup just to have an excuse. Looks like I gave her less credit than she deserves.
"First, you should stretch a little. Like this." Yuel showed a few light examples, but…
"Nghhhh!" Nia groaned as she bent over to reach the bottom of her legs with her hands. Yuel made it look easy, but Nia's body felt like a clay statue. Her hands barely reached below her knees, so she had to push harder! "Guuuuh!"
"No need to overdo it," Yuel said. "You only need to warm up your body a little for the upcoming action. We aren't working on your flexibility right now."
"O-Ok." Nia gave up on the impossible challenge. "Uuu, my legs hurt now. I don't think I can jog like this..."
"The pain will go away shortly," Yuel said. "C'mon, do a few more exercises and we'll get started."
"Fine..." Nia made a face but nonetheless followed the instructions. There was a very visible clash between her desire to improve and her desire to run away from this hardship.
This is walking a fine line. Yuel thought. I have to make her properly work out, but I also have to make sure I don't break her.
Knowing Nia, the girl will run away at the first convenient opportunity that presents itself. And, Yuel was aware he had a natural habit of working people to the bone. So, this definitely wasn't the easiest pairing.
"Ok. Done, I think."
"Alright, then let's begin the main course," Yuel said. "Start running along this road. I'll keep up with you."
"Um, how far are we running, exactly?"
"I was thinking one kilometer for starters."
"Geh!" Nia almost collapsed on the spot. "Impossible. I'm going home."
"Seriously?" Yuel made a face. "Don't you already do this much in PE?"
"Weeeell, in PE..." Nia shifted her eyes away.
"I see." Yuel sighed. "Which league are you in? The ones who walk the entire course? Or, those who skip everything with shortcuts and pretend they were running?"
"Eh, depends on the day."
"Great..."
In short, Nia had virtually no experience with jogging. She systematically dodged the little that PE should have taught her.
This is my blunder. Yuel realized. I should have asked her these questions earlier. Now, I'm not even sure if jogging is the right starting point for her. Maybe she should start with walks instead.
Both jogging and walking had their fair share of benefits as regular exercise, though the former was overall superior for athletes. With that said, the main downside of jogging was the possibility of breaking Nia's fragile body. So, walking was the better starting point for total beginners.
But it'll take her longer to build stamina from walks. We don't have that much time until the regionals. Yuel analyzed. My first instinct is to skip walks and go straight for jogs, but.. sigh..
"Okay, change of plans," Yuel said. "We'll still be doing one kilometer, but you can walk instead of jogging."
Nia tilted her head. "Oh, seriously? I can just walk? Cool, that's my usual strat." She leisurely proceeded along the road, taking her sweet time.
"No, no," Yuel criticized. "That's not how walking works as an exercise. You have to walk faster while maintaining a stable pace. Like this." He demonstrated by pacing ahead quickly.
"Whoa, fast. This is like walking on steroids. Scary."
"Yes, this is definitely a bit more demanding than the 'walking' you had in mind," Yuel said. "But, I'm sure you can do at least this much."
"Hmm. I think I can handle it? Probably." Nia mimicked Yuel's form and moved forward with faster paces. "Eh, I think this kinda works? I can probably walk even faster."
"No, don't overdo it," Yuel warned. "This is your first time, so I'm sure you don't have a good grasp of what your ideal pace is. No need to speed up just for the sake of speeding up. Your ideal pace is likely slower than what you're currently imagining."
"Ok." Nia slowed down to roughly the same pace Yuel showed earlier. The two of them paced together along the road, with Yuel matching Nia's tempo.
Fast walking looked scary at first, but it wasn't that bad. In fact, Nia constantly felt like she could push herself further.
Is this good enough? She wondered. Well, the demon coach isn't scolding me, so I'm probably fine? Actually, he's being surprisingly nice today, unlike how he usually is with Mancers. Sus. This is gotta be some kind of scheme. He's plotting something! Scary.
But, unlike the scenarios in her wild imagination, Yuel didn't pull any tricks. He simply followed Nia's pace and instructed her where to go next. He never demanded she accelerate or anything. And, he had a very good reason to be this careful.
I don't know her body's limits, and neither does she. Yuel thought. It's easy to get carried away with the pace when starting out, so I have to make sure she prioritizes consistency over speed.
When jogging, there was a lot of front-loaded burden, so it didn't take long for the runner to experience muscle pain and ragged breathing. That immediately kept them in check in terms of pacing.
However, walking was different. It was a natural activity all humans partook in on a daily basis, so their bodies were accustomed to it. As a result, walking as an exercise seemed deceptively easy at first. Nia almost fell into that trap right at the start.
Because yes, it was a trap. Walking was definitely an "easy" activity, but only at a slow pace and across short distances. Pumping up either the speed or the distance suddenly increased the burden tenfold. However, this burden was backloaded. It took a while for the person to start feeling it, but eventually, it always happened.
"G-Guu..." Nia wobbled. "Are we not done yet?"
"No, we're only halfway there."
"I-I see… Gufu…" Nia had no problem maintaining the speedy pace for a while, but her legs started turning to lead. Her breathing was still stable, nothing like the scary panting that hit you when jogging. So, on the surface, it felt like she was fine with walking for a while longer. Yet, her leg muscles disagreed.
"Uuu. Guuuu." Nia made strange noises as she pushed her legs forward. At some point, they started weighing a ton. Could it be she somehow gained weight in the middle of the exercise!?
"It's fine to slow down a little if you want," Yuel commented. "As I said at the beginning, you don't know your ideal pace yet. You probably walked faster than your body can handle right now."
"But, I didn't feel like I was walking that fast."
"Yes, at first. But, over time, you started feeling it, right?"
"Yeah..."
"It's normal," Yuel explained. "Instead of pushing yourself too hard on the first day, it's better to comply with your muscles and slow down."
"Ok." Nia dialed down the pace. This immediately lifted some of the burden on her legs, but they still felt heavier than usual. Fortunately, the end was nigh.
"That's it," Yuel announced. "We walked one kilometer."
"Gufu…" Nia collapsed on her knees. "It felt like the longest kilometer of my life..."
"Mhm." Yuel nodded. "Wasn't as easy as you thought it'd be, was it?"
"Yeaaah. It was super hard. I'm dead." Nia sprawled on the pavement.
"Drink some water, it'll help."
"O-Ok…" Nia just barely had the strength to take out a water bottle and take a few sips, then she dropped on the asphalt again. "Good night."
"Are you seriously going to sleep here?"
"Zzz..."
And just like that, Nia's batteries cut off...