IBABS Chapter 67 — Winter Training & "Chasing the Light" Broadcast & Invitation from Japan

The day after military training ended, the scheduled winter training for the National Track and Field Team began as planned.

Winter training is one of the most important training periods for athletes each year and serves as a preparation period before competing in the year’s events. During this period, training focuses on technical improvements, adjustments, and enhancing specialized physical abilities based on each athlete’s individual condition.

The reason this training period is scheduled during winter is primarily because winter weather isn’t conducive to athletes performing at their best. Outdoor competitions in winter can force athletes to switch rapidly between warming up and cooling down in the cold air, increasing their risk of injury during competitions.

Therefore, winter is generally considered the off-season for athletes, making it an excellent period for them to accumulate and improve their abilities.

This winter training would start on November 9th and continue until early March, after which the athletes would face their first major competition of 2020 – the World Indoor Athletics Championships.

Traditionally, the World Indoor Athletics Championships are held the year following the World Athletics Championships. The upcoming 2020 championship was especially significant for the Chinese National Track and Field Team because it would be hosted in China for the first time!

How could they not aim for excellent results at a competition held on their home turf? For this reason, all the track and field coaches had marked early March as a critical milestone to adjust the athletes’ competitive condition in time.

Compared to outdoor track and field events, indoor competitions have fewer events and receive less attention than the biennial World Athletics Championships. Nevertheless, it remains one of the most prestigious international track and field competitions. Moreover, winning medals in the reduced indoor events might actually be more challenging than in outdoor competitions.

Taking Su Zhe’s events as an example, indoor competitions don’t distinguish between men’s 100m and 200m. All world-class sprinters from both distances compete for victory on the 60m track.

The situation is similar for hurdles. Outdoor men’s 110m hurdles and women’s 100m hurdles both become 60m hurdles indoors.

“Don’t get complacent about your decent performance at the World Championships. Your first-half performance in both the 100m and 110m hurdles still needs improvement. The indoor competition next March will definitely be a major test for you,” Su Yinsheng told Su Zhe as they analyzed key competitions for 2020 at the athletics stadium, with the World Indoor Athletics Championships in March being the top priority.

Based on Su Zhe’s current performance, he had already met the qualifying standards for both the men’s 60m sprint and 60m hurdles, and the national team had prepared his registration. But as Su Yinsheng pointed out, Su Zhe’s performance in the first half of both events was lacking. In the 60m events, which heavily emphasized starts and acceleration, Su Zhe’s advantages were significantly weakened.

Besides the indoor championships in March, the most important event of 2020 was undoubtedly the quadrennial Olympics. From July 24th to August 6th, the world’s attention would be captured by this grand event.

Su Yinsheng pointed at the training schedule in his hand and said to Su Zhe, “The training plan for the coming year follows a single-cycle approach. I’ve already discussed with Lao Lü, and we’ll focus entirely on adjusting your peak performance timing around the Olympic period to ensure you’re in peak competitive condition during the Games.”

Su Zhe scanned through the thick training plan, fully understanding how much effort his father and the coaching team had invested in it. After carefully reviewing the training items and objectives, he nodded seriously.

“Don’t worry, Coach Su. I’ll fully cooperate with the coaching team’s plan,” Su Zhe assured him. While training with the team, he always addressed his father as “Coach” just like all the other team members did.

Seeing Su Zhe’s smiling face, Su Yinsheng grunted and reluctantly nodded to show he understood. Zhang Ye, who was standing nearby, cheerfully responded to Su Zhe, “Ah Zhe, we definitely trust your self-discipline. Don’t let your dad’s grumpy face fool you, he’s never doubted your commitment to training… Hey, Lao Su, why are you glaring at me? Tell me I’m wrong.”

At the same time the National Track and Field Team began their winter training, the sports documentary that had been filming for nearly a month during the team’s closed training for the World Championships also released its trailer online.

“No Success Comes Easy – Documenting the Road to the World Athletics Championships”

This documentary series was divided into field events and track events segments, recording the hardships and exhaustion of the participants in each event during training.

In the track events segment preview, the production team specifically used a separate counter in the lower left corner of the screen to track Su Zhe’s entire day of training.

From morning 100m sprint training to afternoon 110m hurdle training, Su Zhe never slacked off or cut corners throughout the entire process. While other team members completed one training session and took short breaks while drenched in sweat, Su Zhe, who was responsible for three different training regimens, continued to use every available moment to complete his training items.

Sweat slid down his forehead. As the main subject of the training footage, it was obvious that his physical condition was extremely tired, but his eyes remained determined. During training intervals, he simply took the energy drinks brought by staff members, took a few quick sips, and continued with the next scheduled training item.

At the end of the trailer, night had fallen, and all athletes had returned to the dormitory to rest. Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity among the staff. When the cameras were set up again, Su Zhe’s figure reappeared on the track in the darkness…

Besides this trailer, the sports channel producers, understanding public psychology, also prepared another interesting preview.

In this clip, all interviewed team members and staff were asked the same question:

[What do you think about Coach Su Yinsheng being called “The Mother of Sprint Champions”?]

This was during the period when Su Yinsheng’s nickname “Champion’s Mother – Tigress” had suddenly exploded in popularity. Even in such a rigorous closed training environment, it couldn’t stop the gossip and secret laughter among team members and staff.

But while they gossiped, they wouldn’t dare acknowledge hearing this nickname in front of Su Yinsheng.

Unfortunately, while they could avoid their coach, they couldn’t dodge the documentary crew’s surprise interviews.

For everyone interviewed in the trailer, the question came unexpectedly. None of them had the expression management skills to hide their reactions. The moment they heard “Mother of Champions,” they burst out laughing before hastily backtracking: No, no, I’ve never heard that nickname before!

After a series of people fell for the trap, the final interviewee was Su Yinsheng’s own son, Su Zhe.

In the video, Su Zhe maintained a calm smile. When he heard the surprise question from the producer, he calmly shook his head, indicating he had never heard of this nickname.

Finally, the producer added a champion’s crown over Su Zhe’s smiling face as a sign of respect.

This hilarious second trailer was posted by the sports channel’s official account under the clickbaity title: “Shocking: The #1 Video That All National Track Team Members Want Deleted!!!”

It quickly went viral, with netizens howling with laughter.

When they reached the final clip of Su Zhe’s unshakable poker face and his photoshopped crown, they couldn’t help but repost it with captions like: Absolute legend. Respect.

While track and field enthusiasts were busy reposting and laughing at the second documentary teaser from the sports channel, someone had already uploaded the first trailer link to the forum.

The original poster titled it: [What are your thoughts on this trailer??]

In the main post, they added: [I always thought Zhe-shao was a genius, but now seeing a genius work this hard, I feel like a useless slacker who’s never even tried…]

In the comments below, many who had watched the video joined the discussion.

1L: [I watched the live streams back then too. Thinking back, Zhe Shao really was training nonstop. I just assumed he took breaks off-camera…]

3L: [Same. I remember someone in the forum actually tracked his daily routine and posted it. At the time, just reading the breakdown made it seem intense but manageable. Now, seeing the actual footage? Damn.]

10L: [That was me. I followed almost the entire closed training broadcast and specifically noted all his training items. The early version I posted was just his initial workload. Later, like the trailer shows, he added relay drills on top of everything else. Honestly, his regimen was way beyond standard. It really pushed human limits.]

From there, the conversation shifted to discussing Su Zhe’s physical fitness. Someone brought up how Su Zhe had competed in four events in a single day. The consensus? His stamina was inhuman.

33L: [Let me add something. Regardless of whether Zhe is naturally gifted, his ability to focus completely and dedicate all his energy to training, fulfilling 100% of his training targets, is something us ordinary people could never achieve.]

34L: ^True. I’m low-key scared just reading about his routine. Wouldn’t this level of training cause both psychological and physical exhaustion? Yet Zhe-shao somehow pushed through it all, and his competition results improved significantly… I have to say, Su Laohu¹ was ruthless to create such a training plan with Lü Fei, and Zhe-shao was a straight-up demon to complete it perfectly.”

It was true. How many people work eight-hour days but get distracted, check their phones, or chat with colleagues to give their minds a break?

Anyone who could fully concentrate on large amounts of monotonous, tedious training and persist for long periods was undoubtedly a hero worthy of admiration.

At the National Track and Field Team’s stadium, Zhang Ye expressed the same sentiment to Su Yinsheng.

“Damn, Lao Su, your Ah Zhe has incredible self-discipline and focus.”

Zhang Ye stroked his chin, glancing at Su Zhe who was doing strength training. An assistant coach watched him closely to prevent any injuries during the high-volume workout.

Meanwhile, Su Yinsheng and Zhang Ye were recording and analyzing Su Zhe’s data while communicating with the data team. During the latter part of the World Championship training camp, they found that Su Zhe’s height had increased to 179.5 cm, possibly due to months of uninterrupted training.

Those 2.5 cm had been distributed in perfect proportion across Su Zhe’s body. This was good news, but at that time, Su Zhe had already achieved the optimal coordination between stride length and frequency according to the data team’s calculations. Recalculating his stride based on the new height would have left insufficient time for Su Zhe to complete the corresponding training.

Therefore, the plan to adjust stride length and frequency had been temporarily shelved.

Now, with winter training underway, the coaching team couldn’t miss this opportunity for adjustments. Based on Su Zhe’s performance in the World Championship preliminaries, semifinals, and finals, combined with his height increase and current height and leg length data, they created a corresponding body model. After extensive simulation calculations by the analysts, they finally determined the current optimal stride length and frequency for Su Zhe.

This data result was one of the key technical goals they hoped Su Zhe would achieve during this winter training.

While Su Yinsheng and the others were analyzing data, Su Zhe was still meticulously completing his designated strength training.

Whether in the system space or following the training plan designed by his father Su Yinsheng, strength training was an essential component for sprinters that couldn’t be ignored.

There was a very precise description of sprinting: it’s an athletic event that uses explosive power as its foundation, technique as its link, and fully mobilizes the body’s energy for speed competition.

From this description, one could see just how important the strength factor was in a sprinter’s overall qualities.

“Ah Zhe, are you still okay?” asked Zhang Zhengshui, the assistant coach helping Su Zhe with his strength training. When Su Zhe paused for a break, Zhang Zhengshui took the barbell from his hands, allowing him to catch his breath.

“Thanks, I’m fine.”

Su Zhe grabbed his towel from the nearby equipment and wiped the sweat from his forehead, face, and chest. Then he took a sip of the energy drink Zhang Zhengshui handed him.

It was still early into the winter training, and the current training goal was to adjust his physical condition and develop specialized physical qualities. The strength exercises he was doing now were still relatively basic.

He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but the daily training schedules that appeared in the training space these past two days seemed to be helping him transition from the previous competition and post-race rest phase back into the process of energy accumulation.

After checking the training schedule, Zhang Zhengshui informed Su Zhe that his morning training was complete, and technical adjustment training would follow after lunch break.

Su Zhe nodded his thanks to Zhang Zhengshui before heading to the rest area, planning to relax a bit.

“Ah Zhe, finished with your training too?”

In the rest area, Ye Jun, Zhou Tianjue, and Zhang Minghao were sitting together. Both Zhang Minghao and Zhou Tianjue were holding phones. Zhang Minghao was furiously tapping away, while Zhou Tianjue was scowling at his screen like it had personally offended him.

After exchanging a glance with Ye Jun, Su Zhe immediately understood why Zhou Tianjue was so unhappy.

The self-proclaimed sharpshooter had become even more dissatisfied with his shooting skills since returning from the range. Under everyone’s watchful eyes, he swore he’d “train until bullets fear him.”

Of course, between the brutal winter training schedule and his actual job as an athlete, that vow was going… poorly.

He could only use the rest periods after training to continue dragging Zhang Minghao to team up with him, where he’d spray bullets wildly, achieve zero kills, and inevitably get headshot by some random enemy.

It looked like they entered a temporary safe zone in the game. Zhang Minghao finally had the energy to complain, “Tsk, I’m not saying anything, but your aim is terrible, and you can’t even spot where the enemies are… but how is your hand so lucky? You pick up random airdrops and get all the good stuff… If I had your luck, I’d be rich!”

When they finished the current game, Zhou Tianjue unexpectedly earned an achievement, but when Zhang Minghao saw the achievement content while in team mode, he burst into laughter on the spot.

[Congratulations to Noble Gunslinger² for successfully completing the achievement of 500 shots with 0 kills, earning the title: Master of Human Outlining.]

What???

Seeing this title, Zhou Tianjue’s face instantly turned green as he furiously quit the game.

What a trash game!

Not fun at all!

Watching Zhou Tianjue’s tantrum, only Zhang Minghao openly laughed, while Su Zhe and Ye Jun each coughed twice, patted Zhou Tianjue’s shoulder, and pretended nothing happened.

During the afternoon training at the 110m hurdles area, Zhou Tianjue still seemed to be nursing a grudge, his face full of displeasure.

Despite this, his performance during training was exceptional. When he did his practice run, his overall rhythm was perfect, even earning applause from Coach Lü Fei.

Since his breakthrough at the World Championships, Zhou Tianjue had consistently clocked under 13.30 seconds. This time, the electronic timer flashed 13.22 – a new personal best. It was even 0.01 seconds faster than Su Zhe’s 13.23 at the World Championships.

Zhang Minghao, who was doing leg strength training in the same stadium, gaped at Zhou Tianjue’s result. He couldn’t help muttering, “Is this what they call ‘for every loss there’s a gain’???”

On another track, Su Zhe was adjusting his starting technique when he heard about Zhou Tianjue’s latest time. The result stirred both excitement and pressure in his heart. He could feel that he was continuously getting stronger, but his rival was rapidly improving too.

In the 110m hurdles, Zhou Tianjue truly lived up to his reputation as a genius. While other athletes struggled to improve by 0.01 seconds, his moments of inspiration could set entirely new directions for his rapid progress.

Even Su Zhe couldn’t help but be amazed at such extraordinary talent.

In the days that followed, the track team’s winter training proceeded smoothly.

As previously planned, for the 100m sprint, Su Yinsheng used high-speed video to record a series of Su Zhe’s starting preparations and techniques. Based on the video analysis, he began focusing on strengthening Su Zhe’s starting posture, knee angle of the supporting leg, and the force angle when pushing off from the blocks.

Simultaneously, training for stride length and frequency was also conducted.

For the 110m hurdles training, Su Yinsheng and Lü Fei continued their collaborative approach from the World Championships training period. They unified the training content that could be shared between both events, while separately arranging specific training for each discipline after consultation, providing appropriate guidance to Su Zhe.

Especially for technical training, to help Su Zhe clearly master different technical improvements for each event, the coaches had pre-arranged their technical training cycles to prevent him from becoming confused while adjusting techniques for both events simultaneously.

In the midst of this busy yet steady training life, the much-promoted TV drama “Chasing the Light” officially aired on November 12th.

On the day of the broadcast, Su Zhe only had time after training to repost an official announcement that tagged him.

On Shao Xingchen’s Weibo, he also reposted the official announcement and tagged Su Zhe: [@Su Zhe, on this journey, Xie Wei was fortunate to chase the shadow of light with Lu Ming. On this journey, I was also fortunate to meet you. In your eyes, I saw the pursuit of speed, which helped me understand Xie Wei’s mindset. Thank you, you are the best Lu Ming.]

In previous promotional interviews, Shao Xingchen had mentioned that his training days at S Province’s sports team helped him gradually understand the character of Xie Wei, and working with Su Zhe gave him a deeper comprehension of the role.

Below this post, Shao Xingchen’s fans, the “Satellites,” also tagged Su Zhe to express their gratitude, while declaring their love for Shao Xingchen – “Boss, you’re also the best Xie Wei!”

Meanwhile, an invitation call from Japan came through to the Track and Field Administration Center.

“Huh? Organizing athletes to participate in an indoor friendly invitational in Japan… that’s no problem, but why a solo variety show interview with Su Zhe???”