Something about Emi's running habits

[SpunkySix]

I was thinking back to her training recently, and something struck me that has struck me before, and I feel the need to resolve it. It's said that she does sprints as her specialty, but her training mostly seems to consist of doing decently long runs.

Problem is, every sprinter I've ever met who does well at meets has the endurance of a... person without much endurance, and when training on a track team with them, they never seem to do more than a few miles on their longest days, instead doing quick, intense workouts on hard days and nothing but starts/lifting mostly on easier days.

How, then, is Emi so fast that she's used to winning her sprinting events, yet she also has the endurance to run miles and miles every day? I've considered the fact that running longer is just a thing she does with Hisao and she only seems to do that so long because of Hisao being easily impressed and the game taking place from his POV, but she factually does at least 5K on some days, and that's considered super long for a lot of really good sprinters, but she doesn't seem that tired. That would be fine since even then it could be separate from her actual training, but she does that even when Hisao isn't around, and then still has the energy for practice.

Her running addiction could explain that to an extent, but the muscles she'd be developing wouldn't be for sprinting in that case, which again brings up the issue of how she can move that fast- enough to win the 200m, a very short event where even partial seconds are huge. Usually when you learn to run even moderately long distances, that cuts down on your speed. Cross country runners oftentimes struggle at sprinting even at full energy levels not due to being tired, but just because they don't have the rapidity for that sort of thing. Their strength lies in their ability to be steady with lesser surges.

Am I missing something that she says or does anywhere that could fix this, or is this just one of those things where the reader needs to accept that she's just got a crazy battery in her and can go cross country long and sprinter fast because of that without questioning it too deeply?

[HereticNine]

And Lilly's parents left her in the care of her older sister and thought sending her to Yamaku was a great idea! In reality, that is so stupid, irresponsible and in no way acceptable for the parents to do. Akira has full-time work, leaving Lilly to handle her own chores AND to attend school at the starting age of 13. You'd say its "plausible" that Lilly is capable of handling herself fine, but it sounds INSANELY difficult even if she had been blind her entire life and adapted to this. Like, why is it difficult for you to take your children to Scotland?

But Emi's running I don't see a problem. Unless we have numbers and figures to work with (i.e. her time lapse in 100m dash, etc..), it could be that the other students in the track and field don't even train regularly or near enough than Emi does. Thus, in reference to other students of the school Emi is able to beat them easily in these sprints regardless of her superiority in endurance and not in bursts of speed. Example, I got a dude named Trevor in my school (tall, slender, and avid marathon runner) who still runs faster than me in sprints even though I'm in track and practice only like twice a week...

[d2r]

I was thinking back to her training recently, and something struck me that has struck me before, and I feel the need to resolve it. It's said that she does sprints as her specialty, but her training mostly seems to consist of doing decently long runs.

Problem is, every sprinter I've ever met who does well at meets has the endurance of a... person without much endurance, and when training on a track team with them, they never seem to do more than a few miles on their longest days, instead doing quick, intense workouts on hard days and nothing but starts/lifting mostly on easier days.

How, then, is Emi so fast that she's used to winning her sprinting events, yet she also has the endurance to run miles and miles every day? I've considered the fact that running longer is just a thing she does with Hisao and she only seems to do that so long because of Hisao being easily impressed and the game taking place from his POV, but she factually does at least 5K on some days, and that's considered super long for a lot of really good sprinters, but she doesn't seem that tired. That would be fine since even then it could be separate from her actual training, but she does that even when Hisao isn't around, and then still has the energy for practice.

Her running addiction could explain that to an extent, but the muscles she'd be developing wouldn't be for sprinting in that case, which again brings up the issue of how she can move that fast- enough to win the 200m, a very short event where even partial seconds are huge. Usually when you learn to run even moderately long distances, that cuts down on your speed. Cross country runners oftentimes struggle at sprinting even at full energy levels not due to being tired, but just because they don't have the rapidity for that sort of thing. Their strength lies in their ability to be steady with lesser surges.

Am I missing something that she says or does anywhere that could fix this, or is this just one of those things where the reader needs to accept that she's just got a crazy battery in her and can go cross country long and sprinter fast because of that without questioning it too deeply?

As a runner myself (albeit a distance runner), I'd like to point out that 5K isn't that much; it's viable even for a sprinter to do with a good cross-training program (which, we may presume, Emi has). Sure, if you're competing at an Olympic level or something you can't exactly keep a foot (prosthetic?) in both camps while consistently winning at speed races, but considering she's running at a high school level I fail to see the problem.

Presumably, she focusses on sprinting, while keeping some distance training in there to build stamina. That seems realistic to me.

[erundil]

I've never been running before, and started just 2 weeks ago. I go for over 5k almost everyday, so it is indeed doable.

I think that with Emi's speed all her running with Hisao is just a warm-up for her sprints. As said in Katawa Shoujo that 1 mile doesn't even hinder her breathing. Also she doesn't run just once a day. She does her sprints in the mornings (after warming up with Hisao) and also in the evenings. She also sprints in the school halls. She does a lot of short sprints.

One more thing - sprints being her specialty doesn't mean she's good at sprints and bad at long distance running. It may as well mean that she simply prefers sprints. The faster she runs, the more clear her head is. But she'd probably like to be in that state for as long as possible. Also if not for endurance training, she couldn't start in several runs during the school tournament. Normal sprinter with no endurance training would have to take a big break after one run. Emi won't allow her body to deny her the fun of next run. So she does endurance training. Simple.