Chapter 463 - Marathons and Business 7 (1/2)

”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.