"Run!! Run as if your life depends on it!!"
Back to their daily life of training, the Umas of the Minaz team have entered their regular schedule training menu. Each of the Umas has their own menu that is specifically tailored to help them win their race.
"Urara's thighs need to be more flexible."
"Urara!! Lower that butt more on your squats!! I want to see your big butts protruding back from the way out here!!"
"Oo–Okay!!"
From a nice shaded place, a young man and a brown-haired Uma can be seen overseeing the Minaz team training. The Uma is focused on her laptop, looking at the constantly moving numbers on it and typing things when necessary.
"Tachyon, can you research the physical benefits of twerking? I want to teach Urara how to twerk to train her."
"That's a very unorthodox method of training, but I don't see why not?"
"Just a little bit until her hip joints are loose enough. Then we can return to squats."
Urara's preferred strategy is late surging. The strategy requires a powerful finishing kick to accelerate at the end of the race. This is why Igo Heita had focused on training Urara's power stats.
"Teio is still struggling to pace herself with the Uma in front of her. She gets too deep into observing her enemy that she forgets her own pace."
"I did ask her to try to use slipstream more efficiently. Maybe we should have told her to stop using the slipstream before entering the final corner."
Teio's power and speed stats are no problem to compete in medium-length G1 races, so the young man focuses on training her stamina to prepare her for long-length races. He can't just inject her with a stamina-boosting drug, so he focuses more on her skills that would help her have more stamina at the end of the race.
The young man has noticed something about Teio that makes her stand up more than her peers. Her learning ability is far above the rest. When Suzuka and McQueen have 3 or 4 grey out skills that they have the potential to learn, Teio has 8 grey out skills already. Her being a genius might contribute to her having more potential skills compared to the rest.
"Pant… Pant… Pant…"
"Guess that's it for Teio's stamina."
The young man doesn't know if it's a balancing act of the world, but Teio's stats grow more slowly compared to McQueen and Suzuka. It's not that extensive of a gap, like McQueen might gain 20 points to stat and Teio would get 18 points, but if this keeps going on, the gap would grow more and more, and soon enough, the gap would feel like a valley.
Her skills are there to bridge those valleys between them, huh… But learning skills isn't as easy as gaining stats.
The young man knows that better than anyone. Her daily training would only gain her 3 or 5 skill points. The only way for her to gain more skill points is to have her run and win more races. Whether the kind of race that is, even an open race, would gain more skill points than her daily training.
"She might be the type to grow more during races instead of training."
"Oooh~~ What makes you say that?"
"Before you came, I already taught her about slipstream. She had extreme difficulty timing herself up properly, but after her debut race, her timing became better. It's not perfect, but it's significantly better than before her debut race."
"Oooh~~ That's interesting. Perhaps she is trying to emulate her debut race?"
"Perhaps. The Umas at the debut race are all green, so she might not have any trouble reading their timing, but against someone like Suzuka, who I also thought about slipstream, she might be having more trouble."
"Suzuka is training to get thrown off Teio, while Teio is training to read Suzuka's pace. It becomes an arms race between the front-runner and the pace chaser."
"And Teio is losing since she has to react and adapt to Suzuka's method. Suzuka might be more of a genius when it comes to adaptability during a race."
"She is a front-runner after all. She sets the tone for the race."
"How about McQueen?"
"Her time and stats are better than expected. Her stamina allows her to perform her last spurt much earlier than most. Once her top speed increases, she'll have the necessary base to be a top contender in many G1 races."
"Good."
I think it's time for me to help them learn some of those grey skills. Teaching McQueen homestretch haste might be beneficial. It will shorten the distance of her last spurt as some of that energy will be stored for the very end, but that is a necessary sacrifice I'm willing to make.
As for Teio, after her slipstream relies more on her own timing, I'll teach her a stamina skill to help her with her stamina. With that, even if she only has B aptitude with long-length races, the skills should make up for it.
The same can be said for Suzuka. Her great escapist style of running requires a lot of stamina to keep up. Having her learn more stamina-related skills might benefit her more than velocity-related skills.
Haru Urara's late surging preference means acceleration is what she needed the most. Orange skills that help her acceleration might not be too bad.
"Hey Trainer, let's play Shogi."
As for the alien, I shouldn't bother with her.