Having discovered the limit that he could run in training Jake was motivated again to do his training, in a few more weeks he would have the Chicago marathon to run and ensure his fitness by then.

Their training on the basketball team was going well and they would start in a few days doing the play drills and game simulations to decide the holders for the new basketball team season.

With that decided everyone was very anxious and just Jake didn't expect much of it, he knew he probably wouldn't be the starter and wanted to secure the spot during the games this season, yet he would still train as hard as the others.

The only problem with that was that he couldn't get any closer to his teammates at this time, who would be tense with position disputes, after training Charlie stopped to talk to him.

Charlie was closer to Jake than the others on the team, and he didn't want to run for the starting lineup either because he was aware that he wasn't as skilled as his teammates.

"Hey Jake, do you think you're going to get a starting position on the team?"

"I don't think so far, I have this problem with the team and Coach Smith wouldn't risk putting me on the team in this situation, not to mention that Ed Cota and Shammond Williams could play in the same position as me."

Charlie was surprised that Jake wasn't expecting to become the starter at the beginning of the season like the others, it shows that he was more mature than the others and knew to wait for the right opportunity.

"Even if you can't play on the team starting the game, for now, you will be able to do it in the future with your skill, and even though it doesn't seem like it now everyone was very grateful that you slowed down your training, so you'll be fully integrated with the team."

Charlie knew that Jake could have a much better chance of joining the starting lineup early in the season if he showed far better performance than others in training, but that would make the team players even farther away from him.

After all, it was as if Jake was a supermarket owner who started his business in a city with several supermarkets that all had the same quality products and started selling much cheaper than his competitors.

Customers would be very happy and start buying more at their supermarket, but competitors would be dissatisfied with unfair competition and would do their best to affect Jake's supermarket sales.

Jake knew this and was confident of getting a place in the starting lineup without having to cause problems to his teammates, he knew that his skills would stand out in the games, that was the difference between a talented team star and a star who He was a problem player.

When Jake returned to his dorm Zack and William were waiting for him again, they went out to eat and left Aaron who was reading behind, Zack and William didn't want any problems and so they learned to ignore Aaron because they didn't want to bother their roommate.

Only Jake thought differently and intended to talk to Aaron when he had another opportunity, Jake had realized that Aaron seemed to have overcome his problems and seemed to be shy and had no courage to start a conversation with either of them.

After all, Aaron knew that despite having problems he had been rude to his roommates who just wanted to be kind, now he didn't seem to know how to apologize.

At the restaurant where they ate William and Zack were talking while Jake was distracted thinking about several things he had to do in the coming weeks, so Zack saw Jake distracted and started talking to him.

"Jake, where have you been going early in the morning?"

"I already told you to stop being nosy like that, Zack, if he doesn't want to talk about it leave Jake alone."

"No problem, William, it was no secret at all, I'm leaving in the morning to do my running training for the next marathon in a few weeks."

After they talked about themselves in the conversation William and Zack asked several people and were able to confirm that Jake had indeed won the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics, they also confirmed that Jake was on the college basketball team.

They couldn't confirm if Jake really was that good at high school or if he really had won a marathon in Chicago and came second in New York, but they figured Jake wouldn't have to lie about that.

"Which marathon will you compete in?"

"In Chicago, I won my first marathon there last year, I want to run there again."

They were both impressed that Jake spoke so calmly about doing something amazing like winning a marathon with the best runners in the world, they weren't used to Jake's humility yet.

"Can I run with you too, Jake?"

"You can come, Zack, but we won't be able to run together because you can't keep up with my training pace, you can run at your pace."

"I understand, so I'll come with you on some days of the week to run."

Jake knew that Zack was very fond of running, but his training was at a very high pace of running speed, not even other professionals could keep up, Zack might want to try training an Olympic champion to improve his race.

Unfortunately Jake did not have very effective training, he was different from other athletes and just used the system to take advantage of others, after all his training could not be done without him having such high statistics and the system to recover his body.

Still, he couldn't just say no to his friend, not to mention that his ineffective training was better than no training for an amateur like Zack, if Zack ran every day with Jake even at a slower pace he could easily complete one. marathon in a few months.

Since Zack wasn't a pro, just completing a marathon could make him happy, not to mention that Zack had tried a few marathons before, even though he hadn't completed one was a good experience.

William was a little unhappy because he would be left out, but he didn't want to do any kind of sport so he couldn't complain, Jake could talk to William about business too and Zack didn't bother with that.

Of course Jake didn't tell him about the investments he had, after all, he knew William for a short time and couldn't talk about such important things, not even Joseph knew about all of Jake's investments.

The next day Jake and Zack were in the morning to run, Jake was surprised how excited Zack was even having to wake up at 4 am, so he was determined to help his friend get better.

"Zack, like I said we can't do the same kind of training, so first let's understand your limits, take this time and run 10 laps on this track so we can see how you are doing your race, do your best."

Jake always trained on a race track with official dimensions, the track was 400 meters so 10 laps would be 4 km, as Zack intended to run a marathon of over 42 km he deduced that 4 km would be easy for him.

Unfortunately, he could not pay attention to Zack and would have to finish his normal run before knowing how his friend had fared, not to be discouraged Zack Jake started running first so Zack would make no comparison.

After almost 3 hours Jake finished the race and was very tired again, he had realized that Zack was lying down while Jake ran so he went to talk to his friend.

"How was Zack?"

"I'm very impressed with the crazy training you make you have run for 3 hours at a very strong running speed, so you did more than one marathon in your training?"

Zack was no quarrel on the marathon issue, so he recognized how fast Jake's running speed was, so by the time Jake ran he deduced that Jake had run at least 40km.

"Yes, I run like this every day, sometimes I can't train for some reason, but most of the time this is my training."

"I had never heard of any pro training like that, and you still do training with the basketball team later, isn't that dangerous? Aren't you afraid of over-straining your body and getting injured?"

"I know my body well and I know I can handle this training, not to mention that this is the only way I can guarantee that I can win a marathon."

"I thought you were lucky to have talent winning at the Olympics and still playing basketball, but after today I see that you deserve to win with all this training."

"Thanks for acknowledging, but you haven't said yet how your race time was."

"I thought you would forget if I complimented you, I couldn't run the 4 km, I'm out of shape because I haven't been training for a while, I only completed 8 laps on the track and this is my time."

Jake was surprised by this but didn't show it, even though he was out of shape he should be able to run at least 4 km unless he didn't train for years and was overweight.

Not to mention that his running time was horrible, he ran for almost 9 minutes by 1 km, if he competed in the marathon even if he could finish he would take almost 7 hours to finish the marathon.

"So we have to change this training, Zack, you're going to run with me 2 km a day every day, and in the afternoon while I'm training with the basketball team you have to go to the gym to do a treadmill and weightlifting to recover your physical form."

Hearing Jake says that he Zack regretted asking to train with him, a few months ago that he did not train at all and even when he trained it was just a light training.

But Zack didn't have the heart to quit now, because he really liked to run and would be embarrassed to quit even though he knew that Jake did so much training every day, at least a little training he should be able to do.

Jake didn't know he had inspired his friend to train, he thought this training was too light and it was only for a few weeks until Zack was back in shape, he didn't think this was the heaviest training Zack had ever done.