156 Extra Training 4 (1/2)

Luckily, we didn't have to do this all practice. Unluckily, Drew had more 'fun' drills up his sleeve. After twenty or so runs up the hill, and countless burpees, he had us jog to the gymnasium.

The gym was a two-story building with boys and girls locker rooms on the first floor, along with some coaching offices and the athletic director's office and the trainers room. The second floor was a basketball court or volleyball court with electronic scoreboards and shot clocks and could be configured to use two smaller practice courts with a divider. I had only been in the gym for health class, but never had a reason to go in besides that. The varsity baseball team had our own club room by our dugout so it was pointless to use the gym's lockers downstairs.

”Why are we at the gym?” Noah huffed, looking a hundred times better than me, who had his hands on his knees, just thankful for a break.

Drew grinned. ”More running, of course.” I groaned. ”Now, now. We're changing it up. This time we'll include stairs and I'll switch up the way you have to go up them.”

”The way we go up them..?” Noah asked. ”Are there different ways to go upstairs? Do you mean the pace? Like a slow walk to a fast run up the stairs?”

Drew laughed. ”Look at you, not even being creative. This is why you don't progress much with training on your own. You have to think outside of the box. For now, you'll take the stairs, one at a time. So one foot on each step. Then you'll run across the length of the gym, and go down the other set of stairs, one at a time. Then run the length of the lower level to get back to the original set of stairs. Second time around, I'll have you skip every other stair, so two at a time. Then you'll come down the same way.”

”Isn't that dangerous?” I gasped out, finally standing upright.

Drew shook his head. ”There's danger in everything. But if you're scared that you might fall down the stairs then I'll let you come down normally. Deal?”

I nodded. My legs aren't long enough to skip stairs going down.

”Okay. Lineup. Noah in front. Jake right behind him. Noah, if Jake catches you, then I know you aren't trying hard enough. Jake, if Noah is able to lap you, then maybe you should be doing more training like this.” Drew commanded.

We lined up accordingly and started the drill. The first time up and down was easy and simple. The second time, made my calves and quads burn. Then drew became more imaginative by having us hop up and down the stairs. Then he yelled for us to hop on one leg. The next time was only for the other leg. Then he thought we should hop backwards to work the hamstrings as well. This went on until the end of normal practice time.

Drew clapped us on the back for a job well done and said we could walk back down to the field by ourselves since he had no need to go back down with us.

I dragged my feet and slowly followed Noah down. ”I think I'll need an ice bath tonight.”

Noah groaned. ”Me too. Who knew Drew could be so sadistic? We definitely couldn't play in tomorrow's game with our muscles all beaten up like this.”

I nodded.

”So unlucky. I thought we might have a chance since Coach only stated that we wouldn't start. But now...we won't get to play at all. Ugh. If the team loses without us and we have to run 100 laps each, please just bury me.”

I let out a light laugh. And then stopped. I leaned close to Noah and whispered, ”Do you really want them to win without us? Wouldn't that mean that they don't need us?”

Noah laughed and threw his arm around me. ”You're becoming a true competitor now, Jakey. You want to win and want the team to win. But you want to be the reason why they win. It's a hard emotion to fight off.”