Chapter 354 Back for the Sophomore Year 8 (1/2)

Jake started running at a strong pace after leaving Zack behind at the start of this marathon, soon as if agreed in advance several athletes started running in the group formed to run along with Jake.

That was one of the reasons he liked to race in Chicago and America, he didn't expect it to be, but he always did when he met people who ran with him.

Jake was also surprised to see that two well-known American athletes who would be in the top 20 were running in the same group as him, was Jerry Lawson who had already won the California Marathon in 1993 and Todd Williams who participated in two Olympics and two World Championships. in Athletics.

They both knew well how Jake was running at a perfect running pace and wanted to run with him all through this marathon, they didn't know if they would keep up with Jake until the end, but if they could hold on until he slowed it was almost certain that they would be in the top 5.

Jake was happy about it and also a little nervous, he hoped the two athletes could run this marathon at the same pace as he ran, if he kept that pace throughout the Chicago marathon he knew he would win and they couldn't keep up with him.

But to do that he would have to break the world record again in this marathon and make much better time than in the last marathon in Berlin, so he hoped the two would just run at his pace and not try to beat him in the final kilometers.

Of course Jake didn't expect them to simply stop running and let him win because the marathon was a competition and not a friendly race for everyone to run together, having other athletes running at the same pace as he was a valid tactic to win the marathon.

With a group running along with him Jake could save as much stamina and energy as he could in this marathon after he learned some techniques with Coach Davis and running with other athletes he could keep pace running smoothly.

The athletes running with Jake were also elite athletes and with this steady pace even running faster they could easily follow, after the 10km of this marathon, Jake's group was the leader of the race and far ahead of the other athletes.

”Jake has been running at a strong pace in this marathon as is his characteristic in marathons after 10km of the race his group is the leader and I can recognize some elite athletes running in his group.”

”Yes, this has happened several times when Jake ran marathons in America, in the United States. Jake as the best athlete in the world and being an American is a kind of idol to other athletes and well respected even by other American athletes.”

”Everyone knows that Jake is known for running at a strong pace and also for the great stamina he has, so in these races the other elite athletes who didn't think about winning marathons ran at the same pace as Jake for more than half of the time the marathons.”

”But some elite athletes running with Jake in this marathon may be thinking of winning and not just keeping up with Jake's pace for more than half of that marathon, we can see for the first time in a long time Jake having a hard time winning a marathon.”

The weather was great in this marathon and not tiring the other athletes of this marathon, it was great weather to break various types of records, while Jake was leading this marathon as always running with a group of elite athletes, Zack was far behind in the marathon running as it had trained.

Zack's pace was just under 5 minutes 42 seconds per km, that's the average Jake and Coach Davis told him to run, but they knew Zack would be unable to keep up a steady pace like Jake could do.

So they told him to try to analyze his time every 5 km of race and adjust to knowing how his race pace was, so in the final kilometers of the race if he realized he still had a lot of energy he could run as fast as he could. he could and try to finish the Chicago marathon before 4 o'clock.

This was quite possible because Zack was already running more than 20km a day running at a much faster running pace than this, so he should have enough energy to run this marathon at a slower pace than he normally did.

Jake and Coach Davis knew that in the marathon the athlete got more energy because they knew they were participating in a marathon and because of the crowd, so it was certain that Zack could easily complete this marathon even if he could not do it in 4 hours.

Another strategy that Jake and Coach Davis came to him was to run along with other athletes in groups to save energy and hydrate when he could, as Zack ran at a time when most athletes ran close he could always find a group to run.