bhwS

by Cr0w0019

this is a fanfic of a bhwS book i read with a little bit of things edited to make it better

38. Chapter 38

Marathons and Business

Jake really trusted that Zack was able to run that marathon in less than 3 hours, and thought until he was able to run in a time of close to 2 hours and 30 minutes, and if Jake was right it meant that Zack could run in the group of elite in the marathon and still finish the marathon without getting exhausted.

Zack had really asked Coach Davis this before, the biggest difficulty for Zack and other athletes in the marathon was keeping a steady running pace so they wouldn't get too tired, and that was the biggest benefit of running in Jake's group who was a master of running at the right pace, even if Jake's pace was very fast.

And after running 15 km in Jake's group he just had to run at a slower pace than normal and continue as soon as Zack could finish the marathon before 3 hours, and if in the final part of the marathon he still had breath I could try to get an even better time.

After a while, the 1998 Chicago marathon finally started and Jake and Zack were going to run for the first time together and from the beginning, a large group of athletes stayed close to Jake because they thought the same way as Zack.

"Welcome to everyone who came to follow the 1998 Chicago marathon, and just as everyone expected one of the biggest champions of that marathon to come back this year to try to win again."

"Okay, Jake Smith is the current record holder for victories in this Chicago marathon having won three times and the most amazing thing is that it was three years in a row, so naturally Jake is the favorite to win this marathon for the fourth time in a row and who knows maybe breaking his own world record again."

"We hope that happens, let's see if Jake continues to run at a high level even after becoming an NBA player."

Jake was surprised at the start of the marathon because there were never so many athletes running in the same group as him during that marathon, many were Americans, but some were from other countries and wanted to run with Jake so that they would keep a good running pace.

Everyone knew the rules for running in Jake's group that was created by other athletes and so the other athletes took turns to lead the group while everyone followed Jake's pace and so Jake and most of them didn't have to face the wind resistance.

Jake also felt that in this marathon as well as in training his clothes were more comfortable and his shoes were more comfortable, so he found it easier to maintain his running pace, especially after training normally at a pace of 3 seconds less for km.

Jake stopped at the fuel points and always took a drink to hydrate himself, with Gatorade he felt it was better than before, Jake didn't necessarily need to stop at all the fuel points, but he wanted to do that because of the other athletes who were running with him.

And Jake trained every day to do this and did not lose his race pace making these detours, Jake also knew the course well and that was why it was easier for him and that is why Jake trusted this marathon to break his world record with ease.

After 10 km of the marathon the athletes of the group of Jake still did not feel very tired even running at such an intense pace, not even Zack felt tired and everyone felt confident knowing that they were running correctly with Jake.

Jake hoped for this because, in addition to Zack, all the other athletes in his group were elite and wanted to finish this marathon in the top 50 of the marathon, so in addition to Zack, he expected everyone to accompany him up to 25 km at least.

Jake continued running with his group and so he passed the 15 km and looked to see how Zack was doing, Zack still looked good and knew he was going to endure more, but thinking about his goal for the marathon he warned Zack that they had reached us 15 km.

Zack was a little shocked because he never ran 15 km in such a short time and he decided not to be greedy even though he was not tired and was the first to leave Jake's elite group and started to slow down his running pace.

Zack knew that that 15 km had changed all the running pace that he normally had to do, after all, he normally ran half the marathon in 1 hour and 30 minutes and in the final part of the marathon he increased the pace a little more to try to run in less than 3 hours.

But now Zack had passed the 15 km and not even 44 minutes had passed, luckily he had combined a running pace with trainer Davis and soon he slowed his running pace, Zack mainly intended to run in less than 3 hours in that marathon and not to have the best time possible.

Meanwhile, Jake's elite group went through 25 km and the other athletes in Jake's group started to leave the group and slow down the race, Jake was still calm and in this marathon, he didn't care who would be the second and only with his race.

"Jake Smith's elite group continues to lead the race, even though Jake is never leading the group we can say that he was the first in this whole marathon and he continues running smoothly after 25 km while several athletes left his group and the others are very tired."

"After this 25 km we can see that Jake continues to run very well in this marathon and still has the same physical conditioning as the other marathons and he can certainly win this marathon if we have no other surprises."

"I don't think we will, I think some of the athletes who remain in Jake's group want to do like the American athletes who accompanied Jake until he slowed down his running pace and so they were able to finish second and third in that marathon."

Jake didn't think about it, but if he knew he would say that if the other athletes in his group intend to do that they will have two results in the marathon, or they will be able to finish the marathon with the best time in their career, or they will not be able to finish the marathon.

That's because Jake would run at a different pace than the other marathons because he intended to break his world record, so he asked Zack not to stay with him for many miles or else he could be harmed.

Jake reached 35 km and continued running at the same pace as he had done a few times in other marathons, of the 6 athletes who continued to follow him after 30 km, 4 had already given up and only 2 followed because they knew Jake would slow down his.

But those two who were accompanying him had never even been in the top 10 in other marathons and were thus suffering to accompany Jake, who had not yet slowed down the running pace.

With 37 km of running Jake slowed down his running pace and the other athletes relaxed but realized that they might not be able to finish the marathon because they were too tired and had worked too hard.

"In that marathon, Jake kept his pace for 37 km and just started to slow down, the athletes who were running with him took it well, but now they look very tired and will have to run much more slowly to try to recover their energy to finishing this marathon."

"The athletes who left Jake's group after the 30 km marathon are far behind, but they have the energy to run at a good pace until the end of the marathon and these two athletes will pass."

"That's right, Jake has a very intense running pace that only he can handle and in this marathon, Jake has a great time to be able to break the world record, so these athletes should not have followed him for 37 km."

"Who knows, one day we will see Jake run an entire marathon at this incredible pace that he does in most of the marathon, so it will be a hard world record to break, we hope that Jake does not slow down his running pace and break the world record in that marathon."

At the time that Jake was running, commentators would normally celebrate that the athlete would break the world record, but they knew that Jake had a habit of slowing down his running pace a lot in the final km of the marathon and so they didn't know what Jake intended.

While Jake was in the final part of the marathon Zack had still just passed the 30 km, unlike last time he passed the distance that was a barrier for normal athletes with ease, Zack felt just a little tired and still hoped to finish this marathon before 3 hours.

Even though he was doing well in that marathon, Zack still did not know if he could finish the marathon before 3 hours because he ran the initial 15 km at the same pace as Jake and then had to change his normal running pace so as not to get too tired.

Zack spent half the marathon in a much shorter time than 1 hour and 30 minutes as he had calculated at the beginning of the marathon when he approached the end of the marathon if he did not feel tired he would increase his running pace to finish in the best possible time.

But as Zack didn't have the system to help him as Jake did he didn't know if running at the pace he was going to be able to finish this marathon before 3 am as it was his goal.

Meanwhile, Jake had already passed the 41 km marathon and was just over 1 km to finish the Chicago marathon that year, at that point, everyone could see that Jake was still running at a fast pace and his time was much lower than his old world record.

So unless Jake got hurt or slowed down his running pace until he was almost walking he would break his world record in that marathon.

The commentators as well as all the fans of the marathon and Jake realized this and started to cheer up, the fans hoped to cheer up Jake for him to keep running at this pace and thus break his world record again in this Chicago marathon.

"We are reaching the last km of this marathon and Jake Smith continues to run at a very fast pace, this way he will break his world record again and he will decrease his previous time by many seconds."

"It is true, it seems that this is what Jake really intends and he does not look very tired even after running 41 km, it seems that the sports media was wrong and Jake continued to train a lot for the marathons and that is why he is going to break the world record today."

"Yes, he is coming in the last few meters of this Chicago marathon and can already see the track that is at the finish line, Jake Smith is still fast and we cannot even see where the second place is."

"And so Jake Smith finishes the 1998 Chicago marathon in the first place and breaks the world record that was his own made in Berlin and with an incredible time, Jake finished that marathon in 2 hours, 4 minutes and 50 seconds."

"It's really incredible, he broke his last world record for a long time, his last world record was 2 hours, 5 minutes and 55 seconds and he cut that time by more than 1 minute in that marathon and he doesn't even look very tired."

Jake was very happy to break his world record again, he ran in such a fast time because as far as he knew his current record could only be broken in 2007, by then Jake would have been able to train to run in less than 2 hours and will have improved his current world record again several times.

Jake had to do this because after starting games in the NBA he didn't know when he could run another marathon, he would definitely run in the Olympics, but he couldn't run that fast because he had to run several sports in the Olympics.

Jake went to do a test for the organizers to prove that he was not using drugs to break that world record and then he went to celebrate and received his award for the track record, the world record and the victory.

Jake received 175 thousand dollars for the victory and was happy to take another medal and trophy to his house that was already full, Jake greeted one of the representatives of Adidas who was in the marathon and took a photo with him, after all, Jake was using several products from Adidas when he won that marathon.

Jake also received a Gatorade from the Gatorade representative and took a photo with him too, both were very pleased with Jake breaking that world record and having such a good time, it was a good start for their sponsorship.

Just like in the last year Jake warned the organizers that he would be near the finish line waiting for a friend and they organized a chair and table for Jake who was comfortable sitting there.

Certainly, Jake was an athlete different from the others and did things that other athletes didn't and for that reason, he was a star in the marathon world and brought a lot of visibility, the stations that were broadcasting the marathon still didn't know, but many Los Angeles fans Lakers were watching this marathon.

Los Angeles Lakers fans naturally researched Jake who would play on their team and was first in the draft this year, so they knew that Jake was also someone running in the marathons and had already won a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics and in an athletics world.

They also knew that Jake had only missed one marathon since he started running and won all others even though he ran in more than 10 major marathons around the world, so as the NBA season was suspended some fans of the Los Angeles Lakers team decided to watch that Chicago marathon that Jake would run to see him win.

And that's exactly what happened and Jake even broke the world record in that marathon, some of those fans might have started watching other marathons after watching this one and everyone was happy that Jake had won.

After a few minutes waiting for Jake to finally see Zack and he was close to finishing the Chicago marathon, Jake could see that Zack was trying his best after seeing that the marathon was over.

Seeing this, Jake was very happy because he was less than 200 meters away and the marathon time was many minutes below 3 hours, which meant that Zack had broken his personal record and would be able to finish this marathon with a time well below 3 hours that it was what he wanted.

Zack ended the marathon with a time of 2 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds and broke his personal record and managed to run in time below 3 hours and actually finished just under the first 100 of that marathon.

This was incredible for the second marathon just that Zack participated and showed that he had the potential to be an elite athlete and maybe one day become a professional who could win a marathon.

Jake went to where Zack was and celebrated with the friend who had managed to break a personal record of him, Zack was very happy and did not know that Jake had broken his world record in that marathon.

"Congratulations Zack, you managed to break your personal record and finished this marathon in a lot less than 3 hours, you really have a talent for marathons."

"Thanks, Jake, I'm really happy, I feel like it was worth all the training I did in over 2 years, I want to continue training after that and run more marathons."

"Thanks a lot, Jake, it was you who showed me how fun it could be to run marathons and I was healthier and happier because of that, and it was because I ran that 15 km with you that I managed to finish this marathon in less than 3 hours."

After Zack finished the marathon Jake said goodbye to the marathon organizers and left to return to the hotel, his friends who were watching the marathon came to celebrate with Zack and Jake.

As soon as Zack learned that Jake had broken the marathon world record again and was a little embarrassed, he said congratulations to Jake and his other friends laughed, Jake wanted to take everyone to a restaurant, but Zack was still very tired after that marathon.

So everyone went back to the hotel as they had agreed and the next day they would go to the restaurant, after all, Zack would stay in Chicago for two days to recover from the marathon and Jake would have to return the next day.

After a few hours that everyone had arrived at the hotel and even Zack had rested some more, the hotel called Jake's room saying that someone was looking for him in the hotel lobby.

Jake already imagined who he was and asked them to wait a few minutes, he had already showered as soon as he arrived at the hotel and was wearing comfortable clothes and had to change clothes to talk to the person he was thinking about.

But Jake didn't put on his social clothes like he always wore and put on an Adidas shirt and pants and an Adidas sneaker before coming down with a bottle of Gatorade, Jake always liked to show off his sponsor's products and he couldn't before because the university wouldn't let it.

So Jake went down to the hotel lobby and just as he expected whoever wanted to talk to him was Chloe who was a reporter for WBBM-TV, Chloe was surprised because she didn't think Jake came to talk to her in an Adidas outfit, but how she came to ask to interview he had no way of asking Jake to change his clothes.

"Hi Jake, sorry to come like this without telling you before, but I don't know your phone number and I just knew the hotel where you normally stayed."

"Chloe, it's good to see you again, it's okay for you to show up here at the hotel to call me, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I wanted to do an interview with you, after all, you just broke the world record again in that marathon, and a lot of fans of the marathons and the sports media have some questions that you could answer."

"Okay, I'm going to do this interview with you, Chloe, but watch out for the questions or I won't answer."

Chloe hoped that Jake would actually accept the interview, after all, he was never afraid to speak the truth, but what Chloe could not imagine was that Jake expected her to come to do this interview because he wanted to say a few things about the marathons.

So the hotel arranged a separate place for them to talk, even though Chloe saw that Jake was wearing Adidas clothes, she was a reporter for the broadcast station and couldn't just write what Jake was saying.

So the hotel made the press room available for them, and the reporting team came in to organize the filming, normally that couldn't happen, but Jake was an important customer of the hotel and he was also important to the broadcaster that sent the reporting team.

"First, Jake, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on winning once again in the Chicago marathon and still managing to break the world record."

"Thanks, Chloe, my first marathon was in Chicago and I have a very special affection for this marathon and this city and I am very happy to have won 4 times here."

"That was my next question, Jake, this was your fourth victory in the Chicago marathon and so you became the athlete who won this marathon the most and also the one who won 4 times in a row and I think it will be difficult for someone to break this remember, what do you feel about it."

"I feel very happy, I never expected anything like this to happen when I decided to run my first marathon here in Chicago when I was 16 years old, it is a great honor for me to have achieved this."

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 participate because of that."

"I do intend to continue participating in all the Olympics and I am training to run in the 10,000 meters competition and in the 5000 meters competition 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 competitions 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 participate 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 participate 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 association, 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.

But in fact, those who were most happy with this announcement by Jake were his sponsors, mainly Adidas and Gatorade, after all, they were two companies very related to sports and athletes and that was a pleasant surprise for them.

Of course, these companies would never pay such a huge sponsorship contract to Jake if he was just a marathon athlete and 10,000 meters, but since they already had a contract with Jake because of the NBA, that was just a bonus for him.

On the first day of training just as Jake did with the marathon, Coach Davis asked him to run at the pace Jake did before 2 minutes and 45 seconds per km to see how he was doing at that pace.

Jake still remembered trainer Davis's tips on positioning and pace that was different from when he ran in the marathons, just as expected. Jake managed to run at that time easily and was not too tired.

This was normal if it was thought that Jake used to do the 10,000 meters 3 times a day at this pace for training, thinking about it Coach Davis talked to Jake who also agreed with this and so after resting for 1 hour, he ran the 10,000 meters again and then a third time.

This was the training that Jake did before going to Tokyo and then stop with normal training, the difference was that this time Jake did not need to eat a stamina bar to run the third time and was not yet exhausted.

This showed how Jake had improved his fitness a lot after gaining more stats in resistance, strength, and agility after that first day of training Jake was much more confident to run the 10,000 meters at the pace that Coach Davis had spoken.

The other day Jake was prepared to run at a pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds, he had to get it at least once so they could know what his limit was if Jake's limit was not that he could try to run even more another day.

Jake started training by running at a pace of 2 minutes 40 seconds per km, it was a faster pace than he had tried the day before and it was 11 seconds faster than his pace to run the entire marathon.

As expected Jake managed to run 5 km with ease and still did not feel tired, after all, Jake had good resistance and managed to keep his body in a constant effort for a long time.

Jake kept running and so he passed the 7 km and was still not very tired, contrary to what they thought Jake was maintaining this pace with ease, it seemed that they had underestimated the resistance and agility that Jake had.

After a few minutes, Jake went through the 10,000 meters and was much more tired than the day before, but he did not feel that he had tried his best in those 10,000 meters and was not as tired as when he finished the marathon.

Coach Davis also realized that Jake didn't try as hard as they thought, so he asked if Jake wanted to run again after 1 hour of rest and Jake accepted, he wanted to see if this could be a good time for training.

If after 1 hour Jake managed to run the 10,000 meters again at this pace it was certain that he would be able to run at that pace in the Olympics and win the Olympics for sure, and that was a good time for Jake to run in the coming years.

Of course, they still wanted to know what the limits of Jake were in the 10,000 meters after all this could help to know what the initial training time for the 5,000 meters could be.

Jake relaxed and rested 1 hour just as they had thought and after doing the warm-up exercises he started running again, Jake had a different body from the others so in that 1 hour he managed to recover a lot.

Of course, that was because he hadn't been exhausted and he hadn't had any muscle in his 10,000 meters the first time, otherwise, he wouldn't have recovered so quickly, but that meant he might have been able to run the 10,000 meters at this pace again.

Jake managed to run the 5 km again, but this time he was much more tired than the first time he tried and he started to feel his muscles ache because of the effort that he expected the first time he ran the 10,000 meters.

After Jake passed the 7 km he felt a lot more tiredness and pain in his muscles, it looked different than when he ran the marathon at the fastest pace he could, but Jake knew he could run the 10,000 meters without difficulty the way he was.

Just as Jake thought he managed to run the 10,000 meters, but he was much more exhausted than he thought he would be and with a lot of pain in his muscles, it was different than when he tried too hard to run the marathon at his current pace.

Jake decided not to eat a stamina bar even though he knew he would be in pain all day because Jake knew that this was the best for his training and also that the next day he would recover.

"Okay Jake, I know you must be feeling very tired right now, but if you managed to run the 10 meters at this pace twice in one day I think this could be a good training time for you."

"And it also means that you can with great chances win the next Olympics in the 10,000 meters modality running at this pace, after all, the time you achieved in the 10,000 meters is much better than the current Olympic record."

This made Jake very excited because being able to run in that very fast time meant that he could also be able to run the 5,000 meters in a great time, after all before Jake went back in time in 2019 who had the Olympic and world records in the 10,000 meters and us 5,000 meters was Kenenisa Bekele.

As Kenenisa Bekele managed to do this, Jake thought he could also do it because he had the help of the system naturally, this gave much more confidence to Jake who had the dream of winning several gold medals in the Olympics.

Of course, Jake knew that Kenenisa Bekele was the greatest long-distance athlete in history and Kenenisa Bekele's best time in one of the marathons he won was slightly longer than the time Jake currently had in his training.

And currently, Kenenisa Bekele was a little younger than Jake and in another 3 years he would start running in various athletics modalities, so Jake wanted to win in this next marathon because in the next he would have a lot of competition in these two modalities.

"As you managed to run at this pace twice today, we will try tomorrow with a pace of 2 minutes and 38 seconds which I think is your current limit, if you do that you will have the time to break the current world record."

"If this is really your limit, we will train at a pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds twice a day so that you can soon exceed your current limit."

Jake agreed with what Coach Davis was saying, for sure if he knew he could run in time below the current world record he would have a lot more confidence in winning the Olympics in 2000.

Jake came home to rest, he would not go out with Kate and so he risked not eating the stamina bar and so resting all day at home, Jake's focus now was to adjust his training for the next Olympics.

After he was able to guarantee that he would win the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters he could train in peace, at least before the start of the NBA season when Jake thought he probably could no longer train for the races.

Jake would have to use his vacations wisely to do the training and so he would be prepared to win in the next Olympics that was in less than 2 years, Kate and Eva who knew how Jake was training and have already seen how tired he was after all the effort they felt even more admiration for him.

Especially his mother, who knew that Jake already had money to spend his whole life well and had his career as an NBA player, even so, Jake continued training for the marathons until he was exhausted.

Even though Kate didn't know that Jake was that rich, she knew that Jake was in the NBA and had great sponsors and so he certainly made a few million dollars a year, so she also admired Jake who worked so hard even when he could rest.

The truth was that Jake had a mentality that as he had a disability in his legs in the past life that prevented him from walking, Jake thought he had rested too much when he could neither walk nor run and this second chance was for him make his dreams come true with a lot of effort.

The other day Coach Davis arrived at the track that was at Jake's house and saw that he was already doing the warm-up exercises, Jake was fully rested as he expected and was ready to run again today.

Jake knew that he would suffer even more by running 2 seconds faster per km, after all in this 10,000 meters mode with those 2 seconds per km he would take 20 seconds out of the time he did the day before, which was a lot in this mode.

Jake started running and Coach Davis was following, he found it amazing how fast Jake adapted to changes in pace in training, many athletes took several days to run constantly when changing pace.

But Jake adapted quickly as if he were a machine, which of course was something that coaches thought was great because Jake saved a lot of training time to see if he could run at a faster pace.

Jake was able to do this with the help of the system that showed him the distance covered in the run, the pace per minute he ran and the race time too, but after a few years Jake's body also adapted to the system and he didn't make more mistakes than he did when he started running.

Now Jake just used the system to make sure his running pace wasn't wrong because his body knew how to change the pace for a few seconds faster or slower, this was also a talent that Jake had that was greatly enhanced thanks to the system.

Jake ran the first 2 km and realized that he did not try as hard as he thought in this training, it was almost the same as he felt when he ran the second time the day before, this meant that Jake would achieve more would also suffer a little.

Of course, as his muscles were rested he would not feel as much pain as the day before that he had to run twice, just as Jake thought after passing the 5 km he felt a little tired as he felt when running for the second time in Last day.

But his muscles were not so sore and he just felt that he was trying too hard, so Jake kept running and at 7 km he already felt that he was very tired and he had to control his breathing.

Jake also felt stronger pain in his muscles and even though he knew he could easily run the 10,000 meters he knew that this should really be his limit, just as Jake hoped he completed the 10,000 meters.

But he felt pain in his legs and felt very tired, it was not compared to what he felt after running the second time the day before, but Jake knew that he could not run at an even faster pace without risking suffering one lesion.

Of course, Coach Davis had also realized that this must be the limit Jake could reach, the 10,000 meters runs were different from marathons, in the marathon if Jake was on the limit he could clearly see why Jake would finish the marathon exhausted and with muscle pain.

But in the 10,000 meters, it could often seem that the athlete could try to run even faster and because of that, he ended up teaching himself seriously, so it was important to have an experienced trainer nearby to tell what the limit was.

"Okay, Jake, you put in a lot of effort and now we can know what your current limit is, with this pace that you run for 2 minutes and 38 seconds per km, you could be able to run the 10,000 meters in 26 minutes and 20 seconds."

"With that you can break the current world record at 10,000 meters, if you run at your previous pace in the next Olympics we can guarantee a gold medal and you can train at the pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds per km."

"When you feel more comfortable running at a pace of 2 minutes and 38 seconds we can try to break the world record, but as you will not be able to train much until the next Olympics I suggest you run at this pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds per km."

Jake agreed with Coach Davis' analysis and intended to run at a pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds per km, after all for the 10,000 meters and for the 5,000 meters Jake had a different mentality and just wanted to win the gold medals at the Olympics and don't break any records.

Who knows in the future when Jake had more resistance and agility statistics Jake might risk improving his time even more and breaking his world record, but that was not a priority for the 2000 Olympics.

After Jake defined his training for the marathons and for the 10,000 meters, he just needed to define his training for the 5,000 meters and after that Jake could just continue training for the next years until the Olympics.

The only problem they had was that Jake still didn't know if he would be able to get enough time to stand a chance of winning the 5,000 meters in the next Olympics.

Theoretically Jake knew this was possible because Kenenisa Bekele got it and Jake had the system to help him get it too, but Jake knew by seeing the best NBA players that some athletes were able to overcome what the system could do.

Of course, when Jake got even more stats on strength, agility, and resistance, it would be impossible for him to find someone he couldn't overcome, but that was because he would become a superhuman when he got over 60 stats.

Jake knew for example that athletes like Michael Jordan in basketball, Michael Phelps in swimming, and Usain Bolt in athletics in the 100m and 200m modalities were people that Jake knew he needed more than 60 statistic points to achieve with just the help of the system.

Of course, if Jake trained as hard for it as he did in basketball, Jake could outperform these athletes even without having the 60 stats points, but it showed how incredible these athletes were and that only the system couldn't help him achieve everything he wanted to without much effort.

After a lot of training later that day Jake still went out to spend the rest of the day with Kate, after doing several things in the first few days, they now spent the entire afternoon together going to the restaurant and going to the park and doing various things together.

Jake heard that Kate's manager wanted her to come back to do the shows, but Kate said she wanted to at least stay in Miami until the beginning of 1999 and naturally her manager knew why Kate wanted it.

But thinking about how much work Kate had in the last few years and how much work she would still have in the coming years, her manager decided to let Kate rest for a few months, mainly because she knew that Jake would also be very busy in the coming years when the NBA seasons returned to the normal.

Jake was very happy with this and it had already been decided that he would ask Kate to date him after the Athens marathon that he had to participate in, that was because after that Jake would have nothing else to do until the end of the year and could leave often with Kate.

Of course, even though Jake was going out with Kate a lot, he was still very polite and respectful of her, and he didn't forget his mother and came home every day to prepare dinner before Eva got home after returning from the restaurant.

The other day Jake came back excited to do his training for the Olympics, Coach Davis arrived and soon spoke to Jake about what training would be like on the first day and Coach Davis was very excited after Jake's training the day before.

After all, the time that Jake got the day before for the 10,000 meters with the pace of 2 minutes and 38 seconds per km, was the pace necessary for Jake to start his training for the 5,000 meters, that meant that Jake would run at the 5,000 meters by 10,000 meters.

Running at a pace of 2 minutes and 38 seconds per km Jake could make a time of 13 minutes and 10 seconds in the 5,000 meters after all the current Olympic record was 13 minutes and 5 seconds, so Jake almost achieved the Olympic record of 5,000 meters running in the 10,000 meters.

So on that first day, they would not try the initial time that Coach Davis had thought, they would try with a time of 2 minutes and 36 seconds per km, with this pace Jake could break the current Olympic record and Coach Davis thought that this would be easy for Jake.

Knowing the pace he had to run Jake did his warm-up exercises and started running, Jake was very excited for this 5,000 meters training, after all, from what he had seen the previous day, the 5,000 meters were easy for him.

Jake started his running training and easily passed the 3 km, he just felt a little pain in his muscles, but he couldn't feel tired from that short distance he had run.

Jake continued running and soon finished the 5,000 meters in 13 minutes, he was very tired and with pain in his muscles, Jake thought it would be much easier as he had to run half as much as he did the day before and with a little time smaller.

But it looked like it was more difficult than Jake thought, Coach Davis was already expecting it and was excited because it looked like Jake could still improve more in this training, if Jake could improve even more it meant he could easily break the Olympic record at the Olympics 2000.

Jake also realized this and was excited to know that he could improve his running time even more, especially since Jake knew that this training was only for the 2000 Olympics and that after that it was almost certain that Jake could improve his time at all the modalities.

"You did very well, Jake, you can see how it is not necessarily easier and less tiring to run a shorter distance at a faster pace, you will be able to run like that at 5,000 meters because you can run at 10,000 meters in a very long time fast."

"For 1500 meter races you will need more strength and agility than resistance, so as you are a great runner in long-distance races I would not recommend that you try this, not to mention that the shorter the distance the more athletes have interest in competing in the modalities."

"The most popular and disputed athletics modalities are 100 meters and 200 meters, after that they are 400 meters and so on, so I suggest that you focus on these three modalities than trying to train to win in other modalities."

Coach Davis had realized that Jake seemed to have an impossible dream of running in various sports at the Olympics to win several gold medals, and Coach Davis knew that Jake was talented, but that was impossible to achieve.

Even though the shorter distance runs did not require so much resistance, they did require a lot of muscle effort, and also a lot of agility and strength, not to mention that if Jake wants to participate in various modalities he will not have time to rest.

Jake was also realizing that he had been very innocent thinking that he could one day win all athletics in track racing, he had never tried to run 100 meters and 200 meters and thought it would be easy because it was a short distance.

But now Jake realized that it would be impossible to do that, not to mention that like Coach Davis, the best athletes in the world want to win 100 meters and 200 meters, maybe when he had more than 60 points in all physical statistics he could take it to compete in all modalities.

Even so, if it was possible, Jake still wanted to try the 1500 meters and 800 meters, so that he could at least fulfill part of his dream and win 5 gold medals in just one Olympics if he did that Jake would be satisfied.

"I saw that you still had the ability to run at this pace, so tomorrow we will increase your training intensity and you will run at a pace of 2 minutes and 34 seconds per km."

"I think you can run at that pace and so you can guarantee that you can reach the Olympic record, and I also think that this is currently your maximum limit, after the next Olympics we can train to try to break the world record in this sport too."

Jake agreed with Coach Davis that maybe that was his current limit, after all, he was feeling a lot of pain in his leg and was very tired after running the 5,000 meters for the first time, so Jake didn't think he could take much more.

What made Jake happy was that after just over an hour he had almost completely recovered from running the 5,000 meters, that's where Jake's strong resistance helped a lot if he further improved his agility and strength, Jake thought that these 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters modalities would not be so difficult anymore.

Now it was a few weeks before the Athens marathon and Jake had to finish the 5,000 meters training the next day because after that he would start changing the training, he would run the 45 km one day, the other 10 thousand meters twice and on another day run the 5,000 meters 2 times too.

And Jake planned to continue this training until the NBA games returned and so he would know that he would have to save his resistance for NBA games that were 48 minutes long and sometimes happened 3 times in a week.

Jake kept training every day in his imagination training against much better opponents than he did, in these training sessions Jake was testing different types of ways he could play in a game.

In some training sessions, he only made three-point shots and made many assists, in other training he hardly tried three-point shots and only tried mid-range shots and layups in addition to the assists.

The hardest thing was when he tried to just do layups and dunks, even with his superior agility, the opponents managed to do the steal and block in several moves, but in all his training there had to be a lot of assists that was much easier playing with quality teammates.

Jake knew that he would shine on the Los Angeles Lakers team as a PG having teammates like Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, he could make several assists and his teammates would definitely score.

Not to mention when Jake did three-point shooting training at night on the basketball court that was at his house, Jake did this training almost every day because that was how he got the stamina bars and it was also good for that he could relax.

The other day it was Jake's day to know if he could train at the pace that Coach Davis suggested for him, Coach Davis arrived early because he was also excited about it, a few years after becoming Jake's coach he could feel that he was finally managing to teach Jake some things.

He taught Jake several techniques to run correctly and helped him with various training to increase resistance, of course, Coach Davis thought he had helped Jake improve his resistance because he didn't know Jake had the system.

After doing the warm-up exercises Jake started running, he was excited because if he could run at this pace he could say he was ready for the next Olympics, then he could just train normally and have more confidence that he could win.

After running for 3 km Jake could feel that he was trying too hard and he could feel the muscles in his legs hurting, Jake was feeling tired, but he could still keep running because he had high resistance.

Just as they expected Jake managed to run the 5,000 meters at a pace of 2 minutes and 34 seconds per km, so Jake ran the 5,000 meters in 12 minutes and 50 seconds, it was a time still above the world record, but it was good to enough to win the Olympics.

Jake was exhausted after this training and feeling a lot of pain in his leg muscles, but now Jake was prepared to win 3 different sports at the next Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Just as Jake, Coach Davis was impressed and thought what was happening was unbelievable, Jake was running at 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters in a time that could be enough for Jake to break the Olympic record.

And he also ran the marathon at a time when he could break his own world record, and he could almost run in less than 2 hours someday and that was not far from happening, it was a dream for any coach to train a great athlete what Jake was like.

"Okay Jake, with that we don't need to make any changes to your training until after the Sydney Olympics in 2000, you will train these three modalities alternately, first you will train for the marathons running at the pace of 2 minutes and 51 seconds per km for 45 km."

"The next day you will train the 10,000 meters at a pace of 2 minutes and 40 seconds and you will do this training twice that day, and the next day you will do the training for the 5,000 meters, you will run in a pace of 2 minutes and 36 seconds twice that day."

"I am very confident that in the next Olympics in Sydney you will be able to make history and thus win 3 gold medals in these 3 sports, congratulations, Jake."

"Thank you, Coach Davis, without your help none of this would be possible, you can be sure that I will continue training to win these 3 gold medals in the next Olympics."

With Jake saying that Coach Davis was also confident, this time Jake took more than 1 hour to recover and this training were important for him to understand more the complexity that had the modalities of athletics and that it would not be as easy as he thought to win several gold medals even with the help of the system.

After that Jake was prepared to start his new training routine, with training for the next Olympics and going out several times a week with Kate, and at night he stayed at home with his mother talking about various things.

After Kate had been on vacation for over a month and still she didn't think about going out and continued to meet Jake several times, Kate's manager really believed that the two were in love because in the time she was dating she couldn't stand being that much with her boyfriend.

And the worst was that she knew that Jake and Kate hadn't even kissed even though they had been dating for so long, so it was certain that they enjoyed each other's company, what Jake and Kate thought was that they knew they wouldn't have much time to be together for years to come so they were enjoying this vacation.

Jake planned to continue with his routine until he had to go to Los Angeles to start training with the Los Angeles Lakers team, but a week after Jake had finished organizing his Olympics training, Adidas representative Mike Morris had come to speak to him again.

Jake naturally knew why Mike had come to talk to himself even a few weeks before the Athens marathon where they would meet, it was because of the interview he gave Chloe after the Chicago marathon.

It was really shocking that Jake said that he intended to run in the 10,000 meters and 5000 meters, if Jake, who was the best marathon runner today, said it was because he really thought he had a chance to win, otherwise he wouldn't try to run in other ways just to lose.

"Hi, Mike, you could have waited a few more weeks, we could have met in Greece to talk."

"You are right, Jake, but you know why I came to your house even though you are busy with your training, it is because of the interview you gave after the Chicago marathon."

"We knew that after the NBA game season started you would have less time to run other marathons and that is why we asked you to run in Athens in a few weeks."

"But I'm more curious about what you said about thinking about running in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters, is that true?"

"Yes, Mike, of course, it is true, I would not lie in an interview that I knew was being recorded, I intend to start running in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters."

"So how are you saying this is that you are confident that you can stand a chance of winning the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters?"

"I would not say that I am confident, I am certainly training to run in the 5,000 meters and the 10,000 meters, and from what my trainer and I saw in my training I certainly have the possibility of winning running in these modalities."

"What complicates things a little is that because of the NBA game season I decided that I'll just try to run the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters in the next Olympics, I'll do the qualifiers and try to get the time for the Sydney Olympics in 2000."

"So I'm just going to be able to find out if that's possible when I participate in the qualifiers and I'm going to take advantage of my NBA vacation to train more for the next Olympics."

Hearing this Mike understood that Jake and his coach were really confident that Jake could win in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, otherwise they would not think about competing in the Olympics where the best athletes in the world are trying to win.

If that really happened it would be great for the Adidas company, Jake could win up to 3 gold medals at the next Olympics and that would be very good for the company and of course, it would be even better for Jake.

"David Falk really should have said that when he was negotiating the sponsorship contract with our company, if he did that we would agree to that contract much faster."

"He couldn't have said that because I hadn't spoken to him, that contract was negotiated more because I'm a basketball player going to the NBA than because of athletics, so it was just relevant to talk about the marathons that I won and about the Olympic medal I won than talking about things that can happen."

"I think about trying several things in the future and I can't say everything I think about trying until I have some confidence that I can do that."

Mike realized that Jake was telling the truth, he knew well that the main objective of Adidas was the NBA and not the marathons that Jake could win or he won the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters.

So much so that even if Jake won 3 gold medals in the next Olympics and played badly in the NBA they might even think about renewing his contract, but it would be with a much lower value than it was.

But this conversation with Jake made him curious about what Jake thought about trying to do that he couldn't talk about right now, it didn't help Mike to think about it because he could hardly imagine that Jake still intended to run in the 1500 meters and 800 meters and also intended to run a marathon in less than 2 hours.

After talking to Jake for a while, Mike left to confirm the information for the company, it was good news for them at a time when the NBA game season hadn't started yet and it could only start next year what it was too bad for them.

The teams could negotiate with the players to pay a lower salary because they played less, but the sponsors still had to pay the entire contract year even though the players only played half the season.

So over the next few weeks, Jake continued his routine by training hard and getting less and less tired after workouts that were now much more difficult, Jake was happy because that meant he was improving a lot.

So soon the month of November arrived and Jake had to go to Greece to participate in the Athens marathon, Jake went two days before to Athens because he wanted to rest before the marathon, after all, Jake knew how more difficult this marathon was than the others with so many ups and downs.

Jake knew about the importance of the Athens marathon taking place in the country of the first marathon that took place, Jake knew the story of Pheidippides who died after running from the Battle of the Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians.

Jake even thought about running at a slower pace in this marathon because of the difficulty, but then he thought it wouldn't be difficult for him to run the entire marathon at his old pace and he would slow down the run in the final part anyway.

The sports media were excited for this marathon because this time Jake had announced a long time ago that he would participate, but this time there were not many athletes who planned to run in the same group as Jake in that marathon.

After all, everyone knew that this marathon would be very difficult, but the sports media knew that Jake had many chances of winning in that marathon because although it was the first time that Jake had run in the Athens marathon, he had already run in Athens at the World Championships in Athletics in 1997 and had won.

Of course, Jake wouldn't say that it was the Adidas company that asked him to run this marathon, Jake liked to run marathons and if he could run more than 5 marathons a year, he accepted, and Jake also wanted to run the official marathon of Athens.

After resting for two days at the hotel that Coach Davis booked for him, the day of the Athens marathon came, Jake went very early in the morning to the place where the marathon would begin, when Jake arrived at the marathon site many athletes recognized him.

Many of the athletes who were there admired Jake who was currently the reference in the world of marathons and was already considered one of the best marathoners in history, some did not like Jake out of envy and others did not like him because he was also a basketball player in addition to being a marathon runner.

But even though everyone knew that Jake was the favorite to win this marathon, there were still many people who thought that Jake had no chance of winning that marathon, because most of the athletes who won that marathon until this year were athletes from European countries.

The athletes from Greece had already won 16 times before this marathon started, so many thought that Jake didn't have much chance of winning this marathon, Jake also remembered that the athlete who would win this marathon was Nikólaos Poliás who before he went back in time he had won that marathon four times.

Until that year Nikólaos Poliás had won the Athens marathon twice, and this would be the third time that he would win if Jake did not participate in that marathon, of course only the other athletes and part of the sports media thought about it, the marathon fans who were at the marathon site they cheered a lot for Jake.

Mike had also arrived the night before the marathon, he should have arrived earlier to talk to Jake before the marathon, after all, it was the Adidas company that asked Jake to run that marathon, but he had other things to do and ended up being late.

Mike still wanted to talk to Jake when he arrived, but he didn't know what hotel Jake was in and Jake had hung up on him during the night because he went to sleep early to prepare for the marathon.

Jake had come to Greece alone because Coach Davis preferred to stay with his family than come to Greece knowing that Jake didn't need him, so Mike was unable to speak to Jake the day before.

After a few minutes, the athletes were already prepared and the Athens marathon officially started, even if this was one of the most difficult marathons, the difference in time when the athletes finished this marathon was not that big.

When Jake started running differently from other times, no athlete wanted to run in the same group as him, and it was not because they thought Jake couldn't win, it was because they knew Jake was running at a very fast pace up to 30 km.

And in this marathon running at a very fast pace for the first 30 km that was the most tiring part of the marathon was not a smart thing to do, Jake didn't have to worry about that because he could easily achieve that with the resistance he had.

"Welcome to everyone who came to accompany the Athens marathon, this is one of the most important marathons in the world and certainly the one with the most historical importance, in addition to being one of the most difficult marathons in the world."

"Running in this marathon are several marathon runners from Greece and the European region who are veterans, and also the current best marathon runner in the world Jake Smith who is running for the second time here in Athens."

"Yes, not long ago he declared that he would not be competing in so many marathons after joining the NBA, and that is a shame for the world of marathons, but he declared that he would continue training and that he would try to compete in the Olympics in the marathon and also in the 5,000 meters and in the 10,000 meters."

"This is certainly a very good thing for athletics in general and Jake Smith is still young and can compete in several marathons in the future, but the important thing is this marathon, will Jake win here in this Athens marathon?"

"I think it is certain that he will win, I myself have doubted several times whether he could win in other marathons and he always won, we have to understand that normally if Jake Smith participates in a marathon he will win."

"Proof of this is that he lost only one marathon that he ran in his career and it was his second marathon that he came in second just because he got injured in that marathon, so seeing that we can see why many say that Jake Smith is the best marathon runner in every time."

As in this marathon nobody wanted to run at the same pace as Jake, he did as in the first marathons he ran and in the first km, he found small groups that were running at a pace similar to him and ran with them for a few hundred meters.

In the first 5 km, he always found small groups of athletes to run with them, but after that, they didn't have many groups anymore because few ran at a pace equal to or greater than Jake in this marathon.

Those athletes that Jake ran with at the start of the marathon would probably be athletes who would not even finish the marathon or who would arrive after 3 hours of the marathon, Jake didn't really need to run with other athletes to be able to finish the marathon.

But he learned from Coach Davis to save his stamina as much as possible to ensure he could win the marathon with ease, but how difficult it was to find a group that ran as fast as he did Jake decided to run alone.

Jake continued running in the lead of the marathon and soon passed the 20 km, even though he almost reached the middle of the marathon Jake still did not feel a bit tired and did not feel much difficulty even with this marathon being more difficult than the others.

"Jake Smith is already over 20 km, he is still in first and unlike the other marathons he is not in an elite group because the other athletes did not want to risk running at the fast pace that Jake Smith runs."

"But it looks like it didn't really matter to Jake Smith who is still running alone and doesn't look tired even after 20 km of the marathon."

"That's what I said, Jake Smith seems to have great stamina and stamina and running a marathon even at a pace to break the world record doesn't seem so difficult for him, for sure in this marathon he won't try to break the world record, so it will be even easier for him to finish that marathon first."

Jake continued running smoothly without worrying about anything else, concentrating on running in the best possible way and in a short time he reached 35 km from the Athens marathon after 30 km Jake started to feel a little tired.

So in the 30 km, Jake slowed his pace to run more smoothly, so after 35 km he was not very tired and was still far ahead of the other athletes in that marathon, Jake did not want to break any record and just wanted to win quietly.

After the 41 km marathon, Jake was already feeling much more tired and starting to feel pain in his muscles, but he knew he would win smoothly and that he could run another 10 km without being exhausted.

"And so Jake Smith goes over 41 km, it's another victory for Jake Smith and he will officially win the Athens marathon, he has a lot more advantage over the runner-up and he doesn't look too tired."

"That's right, this may be the most difficult marathon in the world, but Jake Smith is certainly the most endurance and stamina athlete in the world and does not seem to have any difficulties even after running 41 km."

"And now Jake Smith passes the finish line and wins the Athens marathon, Jake Smith ended that marathon with a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 12 seconds, it is the best time for that Athens marathon."

Jake was very happy to have won the marathon and the people at Adidas and Gatorade were also happy, Jake was also happy to see that many of the people who came to watch the marathon had been rooting for him since the start of the marathon.

Jake won his medal which meant a lot to him and he didn't care about the money, he participated in this marathon because Mike said Adidas asked and because he also wanted to participate in this marathon.

If Mike had told Jake to run another marathon that he had no interest Jake would definitely refuse, after finishing the marathon Jake quickly spoke to Mike that he didn't have much to say because he knew Jake would rest until the start of the NBA games.

So Jake went back to his hotel because he was going to stay in the city that day to rest and would go back to Miami the next day, after a night of rest Jake went back to Miami very early, but when his mother arrived he had already gone to the restaurant.

Kate also said that she was going out to go to some work appointments that she had left for later because she was on vacation, luckily for Kate, her songs were doing well and her CDs were selling well even though she was on vacation.

It was normal for singers and artists to take a vacation after several years of work without rest, luckily for her also the media had not yet discovered that Kate was in Miami, they went to her house and found no one and did not suspect that she was in a Hotel.

So Jake took the opportunity to rest all day and when Eva came home Jake told his mother how the Athens marathon was and that he had won again, Eva was also happy to see that Jake had won again because she knew how much he had trained the past few months.

After that marathon Jake would return to his normal training routine until he had to go to Los Angeles next year, Jake was happy to have more time to be with his mother and also with Kate.

But Jake had to recognize that he missed playing basketball a lot, even if he did imagination training every day and also trained with three-point shots, it was a difference that really playing with teammates and opponents.

Jake thought it was great that he could stay home until after his birthday, but he really wanted to play basketball again, thinking about it Jake had an idea that he thought could be very good.

He could use some of the money and influence he had to organize a charity game in Miami, Jake knew that David Falk wanted to make a game in December that would be like an All-Stars, so Jake thought about making a game just for the novice players.

His idea was that the younger players who didn't have the opportunity to debut in the NBA this season and the players who debuted in the NBA last season played this game, Jake thought about it just because he really wanted to play and that game could give him more fame for the other young players.

Of course, from the beginning, this game would be charitable and the proceeds would be donated to charities, Jake could also look for a broadcaster to broadcast this game and donate the proceeds to needy institutions.

He himself would make a donation of 1 million dollars to this institution that would be chosen for everyone to know that the players did not really think about the money, Jake was not afraid of the owners of the teams or of the veteran players.

Jake was confident that he would be able to do this because he was a close friend of Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison and also had a friendship with several players who joined the NBA in this draft with him.

Jake would also ensure that the plane ticket and hotel for all players were paid for by him, of course, he would pay all bills with the income that the game would give and only afterward would he make the donation or he would have to spend a lot more million dollars.

But as this was a charity game if he managed to sell it to a broadcaster he could raise a lot of money for a charity even after paying all the costs.

As Jake decided he would do this he called David Falk to see if he could get any help from him to do this, he needed David to help get the phone number of the other players he planned to invite.

If David could help Jake to rent the Miami Arena for the game, it would be good, and if it were possible for him to also help talk to the broadcasters to see if anyone was interested in broadcasting the games.

This was all just things that Jake could do to help convince other players to participate in this game, after all, it was a game that might not attract many fans and it might not be as exciting as the other game that David Falk would organize.

"Hi David, I'm sorry to call you right now that you must be very busy, I wanted to ask you a favor."

"Hi Jake, I'm really busy right now, but if it's something I can help with, I'll do my best."

"I heard that players are thinking of making a game in December of this year and you are helping to organize."

"How did you know that?"

"I heard some rumors, but knowing you, I knew you should be helping to organize this, I was thinking of doing something like that, but only with the rookie players, it will be here in Miami and it will only be to donate the income to institutions of charity."

"I don't think this is a good idea, the players are doing this to get some money on this game and also to pressure the owners who are thinking about taking the game they would have for Christmas and are also thinking about taking the All-stars."

"I know that, but I'm thinking of making a game just to give more recognition and fame to the players who were going to debut this season and some players who debuted last season."

"I will pay the gambling expenses myself if we don't get more income, but if we do I will organize to pay for the plane ticket and the hosting of the players here in Miami until after they return home."

"I just wanted you to get the number of all the players that I'm going to tell you about, and if you could also talk to those responsible for the administration of the Miami Arena which is where the game is going to take place and also a broadcaster that wants to pay to do the game broadcast."

David Falk listened to what Jake said and was impressed when he heard that Jake wanted to pay for all expenses before the game if they didn't get an income from sponsors and a broadcaster interested in broadcasting the game, the costs before the game for bringing all the players and renting the Miami Arena was very high.

David estimated it could be over 1 million dollars, he sure knew Jake had that money, but in this situation where many players who made millions of dollars were thinking about organizing a game to make money, Jake who was a newbie I was thinking of organizing a game to raise money for a charity.

Thinking about what Jake asked David realized that it would not be difficult for him to achieve this in a few hours, and if the purpose of this game was to give more fame and publicity to the new players, David did not think that Jake would have any problem with the team owners and with veteran players because of that.

"Okay then, Jake, I'm going to help you organize some things, but it's up to you to talk to the broadcasters and sponsors to get more income for this game to happen."

"Thanks, David, this is enough for me, but before talking to the broadcasters get me the number of players please."

With David having agreed to his idea, Jake became more excited, he now had to convince the players to come to the game because without them he would not be able to convince the broadcaster and the sponsors or even the fans to come and watch the game.

On the same day David sent Jake the contact details of all the players he had put on the list, David did not understand why he did not put several names that could make this game even more successful, but Jake already had everything in mind when he invited the players.

First, because he thought that several of the names he was going to invite would not want to come to that game, and Jake also knew which players were playing in Europe or intended to play in Europe during the lockout until the beginning of the NBA games.

Jake's goal was to make a game in which the coaches would be him and another player on the opposing team, on his team Jake did not want to have another PG because he intended to play the 48 minutes, but as he could not do that he would invite another player to his team, but he would warn that this other player would not play for long in the game.

Jake started by calling Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison, the two quickly agreed to participate in this game if it was really going to happen, Jake said the game would be in Miami and it would be December 17th if everything worked out as he planned.

Jake also asked Vince Carter to invite Tracy McGrady to this game because he knew that Tracy McGrady was dissatisfied with his debut season in the NBA and also that Vince was very close to him.

So Jake had invited 3 more players and his friends had confirmed, of course, that Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, and Tracy McGrady would be on his team if everything went well, after that Jake decided to call some people he played against when he was on the Tar team Heels.

Jake called Mark Bibby and told how he planned to make this game and that if the players accepted everything it was confirmed, so luckily Mark Bibby accepted Jake's invitation and Jake said that Mark would be the coach of the other team and of course he would be the captain of the opposing team too.

Jake was happy to get 3 players and so he called Michael Doleac, Michael Dickerson, and Matt Harpring, the more players who accepted his invitation the easier it was to invite others and so Jake called only who he knew they would accept.

Jake also called Paul Pierce and Bryce Drew to play on his team and so he had 6 confirmed players for his team and 3 confirmed players on the opposing team, after confirming with so many players it was easier to convince the others.

Jake also called Raef LaFrentz, Robert Traylor, Jason Williams, Pat Garrity, and Larry Hughes who also agreed and knew they would play on Mark Bibby's team, Jake also invited some players who were chosen in last season's draft.

In addition to Tracy McGrady that Jake had asked Vince Carter to invite, Jake also called Ron Mercer and Tim Thomas, and with great courage, Jake also called Tim Duncan to this game after inviting everyone.

Jake said it was a game for charity and he had no purpose other than this game and so he would not have to accept the invitation of the other players who wanted to make a game with all-stars, Jake invited Tim Duncan because he knew him from the games from the university and hoped that Tim Duncan would accept.

Luckily for him Tim Duncan really accepted and Jake said he would play for his team, of course, Jake did not want to have Tim Duncan as an opponent in such a game and if Tracy McGrady accepted his team he would be much stronger than the opponents' team.

The same day later Vince Carter called saying that Tracy McGrady had agreed to go to that game and Jake was very happy about it and told Vince Carter about all the players who had accepted and so the game could happen regardless of anything.

One day Jake had talked to the players and organized an important game like this, now it was just a matter of waiting for David Falk to organize the Miami Arena and then Jake could call the sponsors and the broadcasters.

Jake would call his sponsors first to see if anyone wanted to support this game that would have the proceeds sent to the charities, those sponsors could even talk to the broadcaster who would broadcast the game later to have their commercials in between games.

When David got the call from Jake saying he had already found 17 other players besides him to participate in that game, David had to say that he was really surprised, especially when no real benefits other than fame were promised to the other athletes.

Even more when Jake said that Tracy McGrady and Tim Duncan had agreed to participate in the game as well, so David decided that he would help Jake to rent the Miami Arena for December 17th and get the telephone numbers of the stations.

Even so, David still doubted that Jake would get many sponsors for this game because the sponsors might not have commercials broadcast on television, but it was a benefit game and only with the money that Jake would get from broadcasting the game and game tickets already could donate more than $ 1 million to a charity.

But again David underestimated Jake's ability, the first person he called the next day was for Matthew, Jake thought Matthew's company was making millions from digital camera sales.

But even selling so much they didn't have much advertising for the company, thinking about it Jake thought that this game could be a good opportunity to advertise Matthew's company.

Since it was Jake who helped his company to be as successful as it was today even before it was a company that was at risk of going bankrupt, Matthew trusted Jake a lot and couldn't imagine how bad it would be for his company to sponsor a game like the one the income was for a charity.

As it was for just one game Jake asked for $ 50,000 in sponsorship, that would also be a good value to attract other companies to sponsor that game, after confirming with Matthew, Jake called Mike and quickly got Adidas support for that game since that they could make the teams' uniforms and everyone wears their shoes.

Jake just thought that it would only help him to have fewer things to do, Jake also got support from Gatorade and Pepsi, so Jake would get drinks and a lot of things that the players needed.

Jake also talked to his mother and all the players would eat at her restaurant so that the restaurant would get free publicity, Jake did not want to try to get sponsorship from any hotel and would also pay for the players' airline tickets.

Jake also called Jeff Bezos and asked if Amazon was interested in being one of the sponsors of this game, it was the company that Jake was also a partner in, but he promised that he would leave all decisions to Jeff Bezos.

The company was not yet as big as it would be in the future and had not made a profit yet, but for $ 50,000 to do something new and still help a charity Jeff held a quick council meeting and agreed to sponsor this game.

So in just 1 day Jake had managed to get $ 250,000 to pay all the costs of the game as sponsorship and he got uniforms for both teams and drinks for everyone, so Jake knew he had a lot more influence than he imagined.

After achieving all of this, Jake was much more relaxed and excited because for sure everything would work out now that he had already obtained almost everything he needed, he just had to wait for David to confirm the rental of the Miami Arena and after that, he could start talking to broadcasters.

While Jake did all this, he didn't forget to do his training for the marathons every day, and the most important thing was that Kate had returned to Miami after her work commitments.

Jake decided it was time for him to take courage and ask Kate to date him, Jake was very confident that Kate also liked him as he liked her, and after the marathon, he had no more commitments before the game he would organize.

So Jake thought it was the right time to start dating Kate and they could still spend almost two months together dating before they had to go back to work next year.

Jake called Kate and asked her to dinner, Kate was a little surprised because she remembered that in these months that she went out with Jake for several dates they never met for dinner, but she also wanted this very much and accepted the invitation.

Jake told Kate that he would take her to dinner at a restaurant they met for the first time, it was a very elegant restaurant and Kate had really enjoyed this meeting, as it was an elegant restaurant she put on the best dress she had.

It was a white dress that she had gotten from a stylist she worked with, she put on some jewelry that she had also bought that matched the dress and a high heel that was also white, that was the style she liked the most and also it made Kate even more beautiful.

Jake also put on the best suit he had bought that was an Armani, Jake also bought a bouquet of roses and put it on the corvette zr1 and went to get Kate, even if it wasn't the car that Jake liked the most, it was considered a luxury car at that time.

When Jake arrived at the hotel before the scheduled time he could see Kate who was in the hotel lobby coming and so he was a little mesmerized by the beauty of Kate wearing a dress and all the white clothes which made Jake look like an angel to Jake.

"Hi, Kate, you look even more gorgeous today, stunning."

"You look better today too, Jake, I thought you didn't like wearing suits."

"Today is our first dinner, I thought it was a special day."

Kate smiled because she also thought it was a special day because their first dinner, Jake took the flowers and handed it to Kate who was very happy, then he opened the car door for her, Kate had to put the flowers in the behind the car and so they went to the restaurant.

While they were going to the restaurant Kate told Jake what she was doing in the past few days while he was in Greece, and Jake also told him about the marathon and what Greece was like.

Arriving at the restaurant even with many people from high society having already entered Jake and Kate drew a lot of attention, the two were very beautiful and even though Kate was tall, Jake was much taller having more than 2 meters.

Of course, the two were used to having the others looking at them and went quietly to the table that Jake had reserved, Jake ordered the wine he liked best and the two started talking.

As time passed at dinner Jake became more anxious to say what he had to say to Kate, so he couldn't wait for the end of dinner to say what he wanted to say to Kate, she had also realized that Jake was looking forward to some reason.

"Kate, I actually called you here for this dinner because I have something to say to you."

When Kate heard this her heart started to beat faster, this was the restaurant where they had their first date in Miami and it was also the first time they went out to dinner since they started going out in Miami, realizing it Kate knew what Jake wanted to say.

"Kate, I love you, I liked you since the first time I saw you, after that time I was never able to forget you and I always thought if you remembered me too, just like when we met again and I knew you remembered me too, I realized that it really love what I felt for you."

"I'm sorry if it took me a long time to say this to you, but I never had a relationship that really worked, so I was afraid, but I wanted it to be perfect this time and that's why I waited to have this dinner with you to say what I feel."

"Kate, do you want to date me?"

Jake took the courage he needed and had to say everything he felt at once to Kate, Jake was happy when Kate got emotional and smiled after he finished saying everything he felt to her.

"Yes, Jake, I want to date you, I also liked you since the first time we met and I was also afraid of that feeling, but today I know that I really love you and I was happy that you said you love me even though I have to wait for it."

Jake was very happy and as they were in a restaurant he just held her hands, but it was enough for Kate to know what Jake was feeling, after that the two were finally dating and they still had to continue dinner because Jake was rushed.

Even though they were dating they kept talking the same way and the only thing that had changed was that they knew how they felt about each other, Jake would wait to talk about the game he was planning after David called saying he managed to rent the Miami Arena and after he had managed to speak to the broadcaster.

But he decided to tell Kate about this game because he was really excited about it, so much because he was going to play against the NBA players who were the best players at the university until a while ago.

So Jake told the idea that he had and said that the income that this game would get would go to a charity, he did not say that he would donate 1 million dollars of himself to that institution after the game because he thought Kate might think he was just showing off.

Kate was really surprised by Jake's initiative and the influence he had to be able to call all these players even though he was just a new player in the NBA when Jake told everything he had to say Kate gave him an idea.

"Jake, if you want I could sing in this game that you are going to organize, I could sing the national anthem before the game and it could help to get more income for the charity."

"Are you sure about this, Kate? The paparazzi will know where you are if you decide to appear in that game to sing."

"I know that, but I would go to watch you play anyway, so if I sing in the game the paparazzi might think I'm a guest artist and I can watch the game."

"So if you want you can sing the national anthem before the game and sing some songs at halftime, you can sing some of your new songs."

Kate thought this was a good idea, she had her band and her dancing team that the manager had hired to do the shows, this would be a good chance for Kate to present her new songs and it was also good for her image to sing in a charity game.

"I have to talk to my manager, but I think at least to sing the national anthem before the game is certain that I will be able to do it."

Jake was happy to know that Kate could participate at this moment that would be important to him, so if she participated in this game Jake would have an easier time negotiating with the broadcasters to get more money for the charities.

Jake had also called the accounting firm that worked for him now to organize the expenses and income for that game so that everything was transparent and no one could accuse him of taking the money that would go to the charity.

After dinner was over Jake and Kate were very happy because they were now boyfriends, Jake took Kate to the hotel where she was living and this time different from the other times Jake got out of the car and entered the hotel with Kate.

Jake went with Kate to the elevator and took her to the door of the room where she was staying, Kate was a little embarrassed because Jake was her first boyfriend, but from what she had talked to her manager this was normal.

"Thanks for bringing me here, Jake, I loved the dinner and the flowers."

"I am happy to know that you liked it, I was also very happy with everything that happened today and also with everything that has happened in the last few months."

After saying that, the two stood looking at each other for a while until Jake moved very slowly and kissed Kate on the mouth, she was prepared for this and knew what would happen, Jake gave a kiss because he knew that was Kate's first kiss, then Jake said goodbye and went home.

Jake was very happy with everything that had happened, everything had happened as he planned and now he was finally dating Kate, even though others thought it took Jake a long time to ask him to date her, Jake thought it was the right time.

In these last months, they got to know each other better and so now they were sure they really loved each other and could continue with this relationship with confidence, as Jake said to Kate he was afraid that this relationship would not work because he had lived more than 49 years single.

But after spending these months with Kate he knew he loved her and so Jake was not afraid to ask Kate to date him, now they could continue this relationship slowly once Jake knew it would be all right.

This time as Jake had gone out with Kate for dinner he told his mother before he had eaten at the restaurant, Eva was not worried about Jake because she knew he was responsible and just as she expected before 11 pm Jake was at home.

When Jake arrived Eva soon realized that something very good had happened because she saw that Jake was smiling very happily as soon as he got home, but seeing that he was wearing his suit Eva wanted to wait for Jake to change clothes before talking to him.