Chapter 459 Marathons and Business 3

Jake was being sincere saying he was very happy and proud to have won 4 marathons in Chicago, he couldn"t say that, but in his past life as Jake was very fond of marathons he watched the Chicago marathon many times and always thought about what it would be like winning.

Now he had won 4 times and if he could he wanted to win that marathon more times, but he didn"t know if the Los Angeles Lakers team coach would allow Jake to do this every year just before the season started.

So Jake wanted to break his world record in that marathon that he liked so much because in the future he might have to run other marathons when the Los Angeles Lakers team was out of the game season.

Chloe looked like she realized what Jake was thinking and soon decided what the next question would be, the problem that Jake had was what everyone in the sports media also thought that Jake could no longer run in marathons.

"Jake, many in the sports media comment that you are going to stop running in the marathons now that you have joined the NBA and become a professional player, is this really going to happen?"

"I heard it a lot in the last few days, and I have to say that this is really something complicated, from what I heard they said that I would not play anymore because I am rich now because I entered the NBA and I have to say that this is a lie."

"But I think in the next few years I"m going to compete in fewer marathons, just like I"ve been in the past few years, and that has to do with the fact that I entered the NBA, but the reason is because of the long season of NBA games."

"I have a duty to be in every game of the Los Angeles Lakers team in the NBA for the next few seasons, and even before the seasons start like the next Chicago marathons I may not be able to partic.i.p.ate because of that."

"I do intend to continue partic.i.p.ating in all the Olympics and I am training to run in the 10,000 meters compet.i.tion and in the 5000 meters compet.i.tion in the next Olympics."

"Also, I"m going to look for another marathon I can start running every year that"s out of the NBA game season, and I"ll continue to love the marathons and push myself, so I tried so hard to break my own world record today here in Chicago, because it may take time for that to happen again."

Chloe didn"t expect Jake to answer her question so completely, after that there would be no more rumors as to why Jake might not be in the next few seasons and the sports media would know that was true.

In addition, this news that Jake would compete in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters modalities was very shocking in the world of athletics, historically athletes who ran well in the marathons also had good results in the 10,000 meters modality.

And if Jake said he would do that since he was the best athlete in the marathons and even had a world record, it meant that he was confident that he could win the compet.i.tions in the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters, otherwise, he wouldn"t risk it just to be ashamed.

"It"s a shame that you don"t think about running here in the Chicago marathon anymore because of the NBA game season, but do you already know which marathon you plan to run annually if you"re not going to run in the Chicago marathon?"

"I haven"t thought about it yet, but in November of this year I will run the Athens marathon, it is an interesting challenge for me and I will try to win this marathon which is one of the most difficult in the world."

"Thanks for the interview, Jake, and good luck with the upcoming marathons and your NBA career."

"Thank you, Chloe."

Chloe had to close because she didn"t get much time from her station to do this interview and was not prepared for the direction the interview took, she hadn"t prepared questions because she didn"t know that Jake would reveal that she would partic.i.p.ate in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters.

Still, she was satisfied with this interview with Jake which could be her last interview with him if Jake no longer planned to run other Chicago marathons, yet she hoped that Jake would continue to be successful.

The other day Jake had lunch with his friends and they talked about various things that could happen in the future and kept saying that they wanted to keep in touch and remain friends even after the end of the university.

After that, Jake had to go back to Miami and Aaron had to go back to university because of the football team, and just the other day that Zack and the others would go back to university.

After Jake returned to Miami things continued as they were before, Jake still went out with Kate several times during the week and continued with his training, and the rest of the day Jake stayed with his mother after she returned from the restaurant.

After Jake recovered from the Chicago marathon he was ready to start training him for the 5,000 meters and improve his time in the 10,000 meters training, and Jake would continue training for the marathons.

In less than 1 month Jake would have to go to Greece to run the Athens marathon, but until then Jake wouldn"t just focus on training for the marathons because after seeing the performance he had in Chicago Coach Davis and himself they didn"t think it was necessary.

Even more because Jake didn"t intend to break any records and just wanted to win this marathon, even if it was more difficult than the others Jake was confident that he could slow down his running pace and with his strength and endurance statistics a marathon more difficult it would not disturb him.

Even more, because Jake was used to running 50 km at a very fast pace, so if he ran at a normal pace to win the Athens marathon, Jake could run up to more than 60 km if it was a normal marathon.

Coach Davis arrived at the track behind Jake"s house to start training, he couldn"t deny that he was excited to start training for the 10,000 meters with Jake because he was prepared to be surprised after testing Jake"s limits.

Before Jake stopped his training for the 10,000 meters because of the Tokyo marathon earlier this year, Jake was able to do the 10,000 meters in 27 minutes and 30 seconds, at a pace of 2 minutes and 45 seconds per km.

With that time Jake could have taken fourth place at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, so it was already an amazing race time that showed why trainer Davis and Jake were so confident of winning a gold medal in the 10,000 meters.

Running at this pace Jake could run 3 times a day in his training, thinking about it and as Jake could have different training, trainer Davis wanted to test Jake"s limits and asked him to run at a pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds per km.

If Jake could run at this pace he could run the 10,000 meters in 26 minutes and 40 seconds, if Jake could run at this pace he could win the next Olympics for sure because this was a faster time than the current Olympic record and it would be a record Olympic who would never be broken by what Jake remembered.

The 10,000-meter world record that Jake remembered before going back in time was the world record that Kenenisa Bekele managed to make in 2005 with 26 minutes and 17 seconds, and that record was no longer broken.

So the time Coach Davis wanted Jake to achieve was close to the current world record, but Jake was not afraid of that if he was to run at that pace just once a day, Jake thought he was capable.

The biggest difference of the 10,000 meters for the marathon was that the athlete had to have a lot of resistance and agility to achieve this, and in all those years in basketball and marathons the system had given Jake a lot more statistics of agility and resistance than all 10,000-meter athletes had.

So even if Jake hadn"t tried for several years to train in the 10,000 meters he could still start running at a very high level because of his years of training in basketball and marathons.

It was only because of the help of the system that Jake had the courage to try to win a gold medal in various sports in athletics, even so, Jake was prepared to train in the coming years to have a chance to win in the next Olympics.

Jake didn"t know that, but his statement in the report with Chloe that he would try to partic.i.p.ate in the 10,000-meter sport had had a lot more impact, just as Chloe thought the others also thought that Jake would only risk trying another sport if he thought he had many chances to win.

And this was very important for the sports media and even for the American athletics a.s.sociation, after all, the United States did not win many medals in the 10,000 meters modalities and in the marathons in the last Olympics.

And Jake, who was very young, suddenly appeared bringing a gold medal to the United States at the last Olympics, and now he was saying that he could also compete in the 10,000 meters sport.

If Jake also won in the 10,000 meters at the next Olympics he could bring 2 more gold medals to the United States, that was something that the Olympic committee wanted very much and was good for the sport in general.

The only thing that wasn"t that good was that Jake was also a great professional basketball player who was in the NBA if he were just a young athlete they would have a much easier time making sure he had the support to focus only on athletics.