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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:11:45 GMT -6
The cart had been a stumbling block for them at a much earlier point, but they had had moderate success with actually making use of it in their last session. And in the interest of keeping things even a little more interesting for the creature, Rabbit was not opposed to him making use of it if he preferred it, now that they were managing without the probable risk of him taking on more than he could handle.
As she spoke, the creature’s eyes slid toward the music player. Rabbit had brought it along this time too. “Would you like some musical accompaniment?” said Rabbit.
The look on the creature’s face belied the presence of more complexity than he was able to convey at present, but for the moment, he nodded. Rabbit said, “Very well. I am afraid it will have to be the same music. We do not own an extensive library of compatible tracks at the moment, although I will see about remedying this today.”
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:12:14 GMT -6
The creature made an indifferent, dismissive gesture, then paced off to the track to begin his work. This left Rabbit to man the music player. As he was simply warming up, there was no need to monitor the creature very closely. She was no longer quite as concerned as she had been with the matter of his injuring himself. It had happened once, yes, but over time she seemed to have impressed on him the importance of exercising some modicum of restraint. He was not an unreasonable creature, and could listen to suggestions if he felt that they had some sense to them. In some ways, this made him easier to work with than the majority of creatures she might otherwise have been tasked with training.
In fact, of all the creatures she had ever worked with, she felt that he was the easiest, at least by this point in time.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:12:52 GMT -6
In the beginning it had been different, of course, but perhaps it was simply that she had spent so much time with him and learned more of his peculiarities. And it was true that she had not worked with a great number of creatures, and only one of that number had been sentient aside from this one.
But aside from a level of conversational intelligence, the only resemblance the half breed bore to Rhys was a similar need to check their enthusiasm. And even then, the source of that enthusiasm differed between the two.
And any measure of enthusiasm was missing entirely from their present situation. Even with the music turned on, playing what was classified as an ‘upbeat jazz number’, the creature seemed only resigned to the task of plodding about the track to warm himself up. The music did not seem to be doing much to affect his mood, at least.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:13:15 GMT -6
It could not be helped, Rabbit supposed. There was only so much one could do to mitigate the boredom and repetition that came with the kind of training that one undertook here. Though, as the thought came to her, she did strike upon an idea, which she considered attempting in the latter phase of their training.
For now, however, when the creature had wrapped up the warm up, he went straight to the buggy that they had finished with yesterday. Rabbit supposed the novelty of it hadn’t worn off, or maybe he still saw it as a challenge to be conquered after his initial attempt to budge it had come to so little fruition. It wasn’t truly the same challenge as it had been in that moment, as they had left all the sandbags on then, but maybe it was the principle of the matter that meant more to him.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:13:37 GMT -6
She assisted him with removing some of the sandbags, which quickly turned into her removing the sandbags under his watchful eye. As was often the case between the two of them, it seemed to Rabbit that she was more on hand to serve his needs than anything else. When he was satisfied, he motioned for her to stop, then moved into place so she could attach the cart to him. The process took less time now that Rabbit had learned some of what worked and some of what didn’t, and before very long, the creature was set to begin his laps.
His initial reluctance had been real, but now that he had begun his work, it was easier for him to keep going. He wasted no time in getting himself back onto the track so that he could begin his circuits with the new weight of the buggy attached to him.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:13:47 GMT -6
As he was pulling the buggy this time, Rabbit saw no need to wrap his legs with the weights she had been using. The buggy ought to be more than enough for him to cope with at present. Perhaps if they came to a point where he found it too easy, they would re-implement the leg weights. But then, it was always possible to add more weight to the buggy itself as well. Plenty of sandbags still sat on the wayside where Rabbit had pulled them off and piled them up, in a testament to that truth.
Rabbit watched the creature as he made his first circuit, checking to see how he fared with it. She had seen him do it yesterday, and he did not seem very much the worse for wear from it, but this was only the second occasion upon which they had used it. The creature did at least seem to be pacing himself.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:14:09 GMT -6
The encumberment of having the buggy attached to him really did appear to discourage more exciting movement than a comfortable walk. But as the first lap bled into the second, and then into a third, the weight on him began to tell, slowly but surely. It was a different kind of exercise than the laps had been, and the attrition was much faster this way. He was breathing hard before very long, and more crucially, his pace slowed earlier even than Rabbit had anticipated.
But then, perhaps the point of his time with the buggy wasn’t so much enduring this specific ordeal, but simply to reach a point where he was tired. Thus, when he brought himself to a stop, Rabbit did not push for him to keep going. He knew his own limits, and his tendency was not to slack off, so if he felt that he needed to rest before he could continue, then she would trust his judgement on that.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:14:37 GMT -6
After all, she did not spend so much time stressing the importance of minding those limits only to undo her own work by suggesting just the opposite on this occasion.
Wordlessly, she went to begin preparing something for him to drink. He did not fuss over his harness as he waited, apparently focused on the very serious task of catching his breath. He looked up only when she approached with his water, then bent his head to drink. When Rabbit moved to unhitch him from the buggy, he looked up again.
“We will try something different for the second portion of today’s session,” she said. “Last time, our training was dull and wanted for variety, and I thought this might alleviate the issue somewhat.”
The creature took in her explanation, then resumed drinking his fill, which was as close to an assent as Rabbit was likely to get from him.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:14:56 GMT -6
She did not expect more, and returned to her own task. It took her less time to extricate the creature from the buggy than it did for him to finish drinking, but she didn’t place the weights back on the buggy just yet. Their session wasn’t finished, and he might wish to use it again, in which case all her efforts would be rendered moot if she did that. She didn’t think it was very likely, but neither was it out of the realm of probability, and the only thing it could potentially save her from was a little more hassle near the end.
When he did finish drinking, Rabbit addressed him once more. “We will make use of the track, but this time I will ask you to perform a series of sprints rather than a prolonged period of slow running as we have been doing,” Rabbit said.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:15:18 GMT -6
“There will be short periods of rest between sets, but the aim is to do something high intensity to alternate with periods of sustained low intensity exercise.”
The creature took all this in with tolerable calm, and raised no objections. He seemed to understand that this was merely something that they were attempting, and if it didn’t work for whatever reason, then the endeavor could be abandoned, and they would return to what they had been doing. “Very well,” Rabbit said. “Let us begin. When I give the signal, please run from one side of the track to the other.”
Rabbit had him going horizontally, over a short distance, rather than the full length of the track. The creature took up his starting position, then waited until Rabbit gave him a signal in the form of a mechanical tone. At first, she kept the pace slow, to give him some time to find his rhythm and adjust.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:15:28 GMT -6
After the first few sprints, she could see him taking a measure of the time between tones, and adjusting his pace so that he took up as much of the allotted time as possible.
From there, she increased the pace gradually, until he was running almost at full pelt. The first couple of times during which she shortened the period of time she gave him, it went unnoticed, but by the third, she could see him glancing in her direction. He was aware of what she was doing, and she could see him making adjustments in turn to match the increased pace.
It took a little time to get him to start running at that nearly full sprinting speed, but in that time, he had been running at an increasing pace. Even without any weights attached to him, it was not an easy exercise, especially with Rabbit tailoring it to what she knew of his capabilities.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:15:50 GMT -6
The boredom that she had sometimes sensed in him when he was doing something slower had, at the very least, vanished from his countenance. He was having to focus on this one, partly due to the sheer physical exertion of each sprint, and partly because of the calculations he was doing inside his own head to see how much time he had.
By the time it ended, the creature was breathing hard again. “We will stop here for now,” Rabbit said. “But please cool yourself off with three circuits around the track while I return the cart to its proper place.”
The creature did not seem pleased with what he had been asked to do, but he was used enough to the process by now that he did it with only a little grumbling. As he did so, Rabbit returned the buggy to its proper place, then stacked all the sandbags that they had previously removed. It did always seem to be full when they got here.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:16:26 GMT -6
Either there was a Thundergug or other some such creature making regular use of the facilities, or everyone else had been following the same general usage as she had, returning the sandbags onto the buggy when they were done. If it was the latter, then her guess about the proper protocol may not have been far off the mark.
By the time the creature was done with his cooldown laps, she had water waiting for him. “If you have no objections,” said Rabbit, “I believe we should alternate these three exercises. Tomorrow I will see about incorporating all of them into a routine.”
The creature made a dismissive gesture--- that was all up to her, and he wanted no hand in this planning. But he had nothing to protest either, which she took as a sign that he was agreeing to her proposal. “Very well,” she said. “Let us return when you are finished.”
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:16:44 GMT -6
On their next visit, they made a first attempt at Rabbit’s routine: beginning with a slow warm up around the track, then making use of the buggy, followed by a break, and then the sprints alternating with slow periods on the track. Rabbit made the sprints shorter so she could work more alternations into the routine.
It was as efficient as anything else at tiring the creature out, that much was immediately obvious. But that wasn’t the only thing she had been hoping to achieve with it. This way, perhaps the task would be less bland, and the creature could at least benefit from a change of pace with his exercises, rather than mentally checking out as he had done a few times in the past. Some of the challenge of working with a creature of greater intelligence was the greater need for enrichment, even if they understood the necessity of repetition.
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Post by Noa on Feb 23, 2020 21:16:55 GMT -6
And when he had grown bored with even that, Rabbit worked a few things from their last attempt at agility training into the mix as well. She did not quite bring out the actual poles, since the intent wasn’t to focus on how quickly and accurately he could move, but she did ask him to run in zigzagging patterns during some of his sprints, or to pick up his feet when he did them.
The only trouble with this particular approach was that it made their progress more difficult to ascertain. The different exercises, and the different allocations of them from one day to the next, made it hard for Rabbit to definitively say that he was making indisputable progress supported by hard numbers. But as the sessions wore on, and one week became two, and then three, it would have been false to say that he made no improvement at all either.
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