novelA Marathon to Enter History 6
| ← Ch.184 | Ch.186 → |
After another day of rest Jake told his mother that he was going to take a quick trip and took a plane to Chicago, Tiffany had arranged the plane tickets back and forth for Jake and even booked the hotel for him.
Tiffany would go on another flight to Chicago, they were the employees of some of her stores in town that would help Jake with whatever he needed for the race, Jake was not affected by the trip that lasted just over 3 hours.
Jake went directly to the hotel and did not even think about touring the city after all this was the first time he had participated in a marathon, and it was not just to have fun but to win, so Jake was focused.
Jake was ready by 6 am he had arrived, it was very cold, but Jake did not even feel uncomfortable with that temperature, he took his kit and registration number and was ready to run.
Even though the shirt he got with the registration number took away a bit of the view of the brands of the companies that sponsored Jake, they had already thought about it and also had in the running shorts.
Even though Jake was very tall, on his face everyone could clearly see that he was a young man and he saw many looks that seemed to be scorning him, but Jake did not care about these people, besides, if it was not for the system he would probably have who only fight to complete the marathon.
While still missing a time to start the marathon Jake managed to find Tiffany who was the only person who came to accompany him in this race, John did not care about Jake giving preferential treatment to Tiffany who was the longest with him, but he would not come to Chicago just to give support in this marathon.
In fact, Tiffany also did not need to come, but after she had a good conversation with Jake she began to think of a corner of her mind that for the more than 4 years she's known him since Jake was a child, that Jake could really win this marathon
She herself thought this was crazy and even Clara who knows him and talked to Jake the longest with him thought so, but she really believed he could achieve this miracle.
After all, she thought that Jake would not ask if she wanted to make a uniform for her sponsors if he just tried to finish the race, but even if Jake did not win, she would not find it a waste to watch that race.
So Tiffany quickly told Jake at what stations her staff would be preparing water, then she said she wanted luck and waited for him at the end of the marathon.
After that Jake concentrated to try to stay in the best possible shape, he went to find a place in the starting line, Jake would not be in the front because he had to control his pace, when it passed from 7 and 20 in the morning everyone started to prepare for the start of the marathon.
The only person Jake knew best about the starting line of the race was what would originally be the champion of this event, Jake only became interested in the champions when he sought information about the marathon in his past life.
As in his past life, this man would be the winner in Jake's view he was his only competitor for this win, he was named Eamonn Martin and finished that marathon in just under 2 hours and 11 minutes.
So Jake had confidence in winning this event after a few more minutes finally began the 1995 Chicago marathon.
In the beginning, many started running quickly and took the lead in the race, the start of the race is a moment where you can see who had experience in marathons and who was new.
After all, it was not smart for anyone who wanted to finish this race in a good time to increase the pace early on after all these people would have cramps and would have difficulty finishing the race in a few kilometers.
And even those who were more experienced ended up having their race rhythm affected by these people and in the beginning, they increased slightly the race rhythm.
The main enemies of the marathon runners were the wrong pace, temperature, and unexpected muscle problems, after all the people who trained to win a marathon were confident to finish the marathon in just over 2 hours.
But these factors were some that could get an experienced marathoner out of the race, Jake did not feel in his body the temperature changes, he had also trained a lot using all the system's resources to accustom his body and his muscles to run that distance in those last months.
As for the pace being hampered by others, Jake was always observing the transparent screen that was in the upper right corner of his field of vision, in that transparent screen he could see that he was running at a rate of 1 km every 3 minutes.
So he could finish that race in just over 2 hours and 6 minutes with that speed, of course, Jake would make adjustments in the last few km of the race if other competitors were in front of him.
After the first 5 km keeping the same pace, Jake felt that he had passed by many people who accelerated at the beginning of the marathon, only the strongest still had to be exceeded.
Even after that distance he was not yet tired and his breathing was steady, Jake could see that many of them would accelerate and pass through him and sometimes Jake would pass by these people.
These should be people who had some training and experience and we're trying to maintain a steady pace for the race.
After 10 km of racing the first 30 minutes had passed and Jake did not know if there was still someone ahead of him at the time of the race, but Jake knew that even the best could be seen in the last few kilometers of the race.
After 15 km of marathon Jake still felt great with his running pace, he was only paying attention to the transparent screen in the upper right corner and did not care much about other runners who were around him.
Jake started to feel tired and Jake doubted he had more than 30 people in front of him at this point in the race, but Jake tried not to think much of anything and just to continue concentrating on his racing pace.
Whoever was finding this all very strange were the people who were called by Tiffany to stay at the stations and deliver water and sponges to Jake, after all, they had information that Jake did not go through any of these stations to get water.
After the first 15 km, these people even thought that Jake had given up the marathon, but some of the staff saw Jake driving through 25 km and 30 km, so he was still in the marathon, but he had not hydrated once in the whole marathon.
Actually, when Jake ran every day in his training, of course, he had no one to deliver water to him during the race, so Jake, who had a much stronger body than the others, could run an entire marathon without moisturizing himself.
After the 35 km race Jake already felt that the end of the race was near, he had already run for 105 minutes and began to feel his legs getting heavier and his breathing was irregular.
At this point in the race, Jake was only thinking about winning this marathon, as he could not see anyone in front of him Jake thought everyone had been after him for a long time.
If Jake could run at his pace and some would still win being too far ahead of him for the last few km and Jake could not even see these people he had to admit that he did not deserve to win this marathon and he would not even be sad about it.
The Chicago marathon was a televised event, so while Jake was thinking absurd things the people of the United States were the ones who were much more shocked, after all, it was clear to everyone that Jake was very young.
At the time of the race, he was the first in the race even though he himself was not sure of that, in the last few km it is normal for marathoners to increase their pace to get a better time at the end of each marathon.
That meant that these people were at least a few hundred feet from where Jake was, and Jake, like everyone else, could also increase his pace in the last hundred meters.
And everyone could see that only Jake was struggling to run he had no problem running through the end of this marathon, through his registration number the commentators could know some data from Jake.
They knew that Jake was only 16 years old and was in his senior year of high school, could also know that this was Jake's first marathon in life, a young man of 16 years to be leading a marathon for a few km already, even if he did not win would be a great story.
Another interesting fact that the commentators realized that Jake had not hydrated once in this marathon, this was certainly one of the determining factors for Jake to always keep his race pace.
What these commentators were most excited about was that Jake was a young American by birth, it was almost 13 years since the last American won a marathon in Chicago and even if they could not confirm they could be sure that Jake should be the youngest to win a marathon in history.
At least since the marathon became more competitive, after all, a few dozen years ago there could be a young man who won by running in less than 2 hours and 40 minutes, so everyone was happy with this pleasant surprise.
Even more so because it was the year before the Olympics in Atlanta that would be in the United States, so it was great to know that they could win another medal.
It was a shame that since Jake had never taken part in any marathon, no one had any more information about him beforehand, yet everyone thought it was incredible that a young man could win.
| ← Ch. 184 | Ch. 186 → |