Ashan 10 721
It was a beautiful morning when Goku arrived at the foot of his workout area for the day. There were plenty of like-minded individuals in the vicinity of the park that the hybrid had decided to visit. The Goku was still trying to get used to spreading his wings more and it was a pretty big culture shock to come to a park this early in the day. He hoped his experiences so far would help his keep his unique identity and not become another worker drone like the rest. These experiences had also instilled a competitive nature in him which made his naturally gravitate towards differentiating himself from the crowd.
Today, Goku would be aiming to get a feel of his own physical abilities. The reason for this was that he had never really tested himself or pushed his limits when it came to flying and running. He had simply just gone with the flow. Goku had been motivated to take a day to test himself because he had overheard a man bragging about how fast he could run in a race. It seemed like a stupid thing to advertise at the time, but other people seemed to be genuinely impressed. Goku had advertised that nobody cared about how fast the man could run, and had been asked how fast he himself could run. Of course, he had no good answer and looked the fool. After today, he would be able to give a good answer. ”At least after today I will know where I stand!”
Goku stood tall, or rather as tall as he could when his wings wanted him to instinctively crouch down and take off into the air. He had a confident look on his face, as if he was going to show the entire world that he was the fastest guy around. He stared out at the park before him and started to sprint as fast as he could down a path. He pushed his body to go as fast than it ever had gone before, egging his legs to go faster. He didn’t even make it one fifth of a lap around the fairly small park before he called it quits. He decided to lie on the ground, baking in the heat and gasping for breath as nothing but cold air came to his aid.
“Good grief. How do any of these people find the motivation to work out in this heat?” There had to be some secret that he wasn’t quite grasping. He was already tired and he was having a lot of difficulty breathing. His lungs burned something fierce and he wasn’t quite sure what he could do to stop it. ”Maybe I could try changing my speed by how fast my heart is beating. My heart beat seems to decide how fast I take breaths so maybe that is what I should gauge by.” It was a nice thought, but Goku wasn’t quite sure how to go about applying this idea.
The winged man would take off again, but much more slowly. He felt his heart rate increase as soon as he started running so he slowed down. As he slowed, his heartrate slowed. ”Interesting, it looks like I had it the other way around. My heart rate adjusts to my activity not the other way around.” It was true, but Goku still felt there was merit to finding the heart rate that he wouldn’t immediately tire out to. Having no way of keeping time on hand, he would simply adjust his speed until he got a feel of how fast his heart should beat to feel comfortable. Now he would know when he was getting in the danger zone of falling down out of exhaustion.
Goku had gotten down gauging his heart rate, but he still needed to find a better way to pace his running speed. There was a lot to be said about how the people around his were exercising. These people seemed to always seem so steady and calm no matter what they were doing, unless they were clearly trying to exert themselves. Goku would watch one man as he ran past him. He had been running since he showed up, steadily and at the same pace. he watched his chest rise and fall after he passed and noticed that it was very steady; it was much unlike his own jagged breathing.
Goku would try once more to run, but this time he was going to keep his breathing to match the man’s. When he saw his chest rise, he would inhale. When it fell, he would exhale. This little experiment did not last long, however, as his cardio abilities were nowhere near his levels. What he could do, was take faster breaths. Moving at a steady speed meant that he could slowly but surely ease his breaths into a simple rhythm that made it so he hardly had to focus on anything at all. So long as he maintained his speed his breaths could stay steady.
Goku still couldn’t make it a even a quarter lap around the park, but he had long since given up on that goal for the day due to his low discipline. A drink of water was all he needed to revitalize herself and think of a new way to pace himself. ”I wonder if I can breathe based on how many steps I’ve taken since the last breath.” It was an idea that he thought was worth pursuing, but how many steps would he take? Goku started to jog again at his established comfort pace and simply let his breathing fall into a consistent rhythm. Then, he began to count his steps in between breaths.
”Two steps? That’s it?” Goku asked his self in surprise. Looking around, he soon spotted the other jogging man and saw that he was only taking a breath every four or five steps. ”Maybe it gets easier once I get better at running. I guess I will aim for three steps and see how that goes.” And so Goku would begin to take his breaths in steps of three to see the difference it made. He felt that his lungs were working hard to provide his body with the demanded oxygen. At the same time he felt like weight was taken off his chest in terms of forcing breaths out. He was going to have to test this again once he got into better shape.
Goku wasn’t sure what else he could do to improve his running, so he decided to branch out from the park and just jog until he couldn’t jog anymore. One thing that he didn’t like was how the surface beneath his feet kept changing. he would go from pounding his feet on soft grass to pounding his feet on hard rocks. It didn’t feel right and he felt as though he had to adjust his entire running mentality every time he switched from one surface to another. Winged man would adjust his speed on different surfaces, but that didn’t seem to do much of anything. All changing speed did was make his hurt his feet faster or slower. ”What I need to do is press my feet softer on hard surfaces,” he thought as he lightly stepped onto a dirt pathway. ”And when I switch to grass, I should press harder since the surface can take more punishment. That and it won’t hurt my feet.” Goku jumped to lengthy patch of grass and more or less slammed his feet into the ground with every step. It was far from perfect, but it was certainly a start.
Goku began to make a small loop, intending to head back to the park where he started. It was getting very cumbersome to lift his legs let alone keep jogging. His fatigue was finally starting to catch up to him and he was drawing awkward looks from people who were wondering why he looked so tired. Something was telling Goku that he should have just stayed in the park just so he wouldn’t be partially limping throughout populated areas of town. ”Maybe I should start paying attention to how I act from now on. It’s not like I’m around strangers. I might actually see these people again!”
At long last, it was time for the winged man to head back home. He had gotten a little better at adjusting his speed based on the surface he was on. On top of that, he had finally figured out how to pace himself so that he could one day measure his own speed. The only thing he had lost today was a ton of body water and his will to visit this park anytime in the near future. ”It’s a nice park and all, but how many times do I have to run around before I get bored out of my mind?” Goku thought as he hopped into his bath and finally washed the sweat off his body.
