Chapter 220 Bright Future 6
Jake had scored 10 points in that period and had also made 4 a.s.sists and got a rebound, so Jake was now 14 points and 9 a.s.sists and 3 rebounds, the trained Mike who was worried about Jake thought he was doing very well so far.
But I couldn"t tell if Jake thought he was playing badly because his standard is too high, at least he was playing a lot better than in the last state champions.h.i.+p game, it was better for Coach Mike if Jake was healed, because otherwise, it would be hard for them to win the national champions.h.i.+p without it.
Jake who had forgotten his problems had also played well in the third period and the Elite team increased the advantage even further, by the end of the first game the Elite team had won the game by 30 points.
Jake had 38 points and 15 a.s.sists plus 5 rebounds, Lucas also had a good game and Harrison didn"t even get into the game, David had a modest game and was replaced by Nathan in the fourth period.
Coach Mike was very happy with the outcome of the game and figured that even if Jake had a problem before he should have healed after seeing him play so well today, so Jake picked up his things and left after saying goodbye to his teammates.
After arriving home Jake took a shower and rested and just got up when his mother came home and told her that they had won the game again, Eva was happy with it and made a special celebration dinner for Jake.
After working in a restaurant for several months, Eva had improved her cooking a lot, but what she improved, even more, was the speed at which she prepared the food, she just had to wait for the fire, because her cooking skills made her finish the dishes quickly.
This was normal considering she saw the same dishes being made hundreds of times and even observed the chefs "techniques for preparing the fastest dishes, as Anna had said, years of experience only improve chefs" skills.
Even now that Jake could cook better than his mother, he was much slower than she was to prepare the dishes, but that only made Jake happy to see Eva cooking so well.
At school during the week the tension was increasing as the last semester progressed, Jake was the most relaxed about it because he had high scores on both ACT and SAT tests, and Jake already had a university scholars.h.i.+p guaranteed.
Joseph had also gotten a very high score, but he wanted to get even better before entering college, with Jake teaching when he had time all of Jake"s cla.s.smates had gotten good grades.
The teachers now loved Jake and could not even believe how some teachers in the past might not like him, after all, they earned great bonuses from the Elite school on the higher their students" grades.
Jake even found time to teach some players on his basketball team and some close friends he had made on the football team, everyone who studied with Jake got great scores.
But that was because no one who could get into a private school could be stupid, besides, the cla.s.ses were always good no matter which teachers gave the cla.s.ses, Jake had gotten a good grade even on the GMAT he did.
Even if it wasn"t for the sports scholars.h.i.+p Jake could easily get into any university, Jake had also overcome his fear of another accident and could no longer walk, now he was convinced that his future would be great.
Jake was in such a good mood that he even helped Liza with her studies, Joseph was smart, but unlike Jake, he was terrible at teaching and couldn"t help his girlfriend.
In his last semester of high school even Lola came to talk to Jake, she offered to teach him how to do well on exams, he thanked him and said he didn"t need to be the best student in his cla.s.s.
He was grateful and didn"t want Lola to waste her time, and Lola ended up being embarra.s.sed and embarra.s.sed for it, Lola had to blame Eva who always bragged about everything Jake did and forgot to say that he was the best student of the school.
This week Jake was a little tense too because on Sat.u.r.day this week would be the qualifying event for the Olympics, so he had to train well during the week, he still ran the 55 km with a speed of 30 minutes for every 10 km.
Jake wanted to make sure he could handle the entire race at his normal speed that would win the marathon, the second game of the Elite national champions.h.i.+p would be on Friday, so he would have to go to Charlotte, NC where he would be the night of cla.s.sification.
This time he didn"t want anyone to go with him there, so John wasn"t happy anymore but he understood that Jake needed focus right now to try to win, there would also be a $ 100,000 prize for the first place Jake wanted to win.
Tiffany had said he had not found any suitable coach for Jake, so Jake said he didn"t want any now until the Olympics were over so he could get a better coach and a coach now could hurt his training.
After a week of training was the day of the second game of the national champions.h.i.+p, this game was easily won by the Elite team, in the first period of the game they were 10 points ahead of the opponents.
In the second period, they were winning by 22 points and at the end of the third period, they won by 32 points, as the opponent practically gave up the last period they won by 38 points difference because they held on.
The opposing team was good and all their players played regularly, unfortunately at that time only opponents with high-level players could go through the defense of the Elite team and bring danger to them.
Jake also played very well and scored 34 points, 12 a.s.sists and 4 steals in the game, so Coach Mike was sure that Jake had no more problems, the same day Jake went to Charlotte, NC to prepare for the marathon the other day.
Even though he had forgotten this during the games Jake had already realized that he had gotten rid of his psychological problems, in the cla.s.sification marathon he could be sure if he was completely healed.
In fact, according to Jake had realized he should have no problem winning even though he still had the psychological problem, yet he was good at giving more confidence during the marathon to know that he was fine.
During the race he would have to watch out for Bob Kempainen who was the one who would win the marathon today and also win the gold medal in the Olympics after a few months, Jake even knew that Bob Kempainen would win this marathon after getting sick at the end of the test.
Even so, Jake had to try to win the marathon just as he was competing, because if he had to take pity on all his opponents, he better stop running and playing basketball too.
On race day Jake did his warm-up exercises as he prepared to start running, in his after-marathon training he had learned how to get water at various points in the marathon without disturbing his running pace.
Jake had also decided to run a portion of the group marathon to avoid wear and tear by facing the entire draft, but as he knew it would be at a much stronger pace than other runners it was better that he run alone again today.
So began the qualifying race for the Olympics, Jake was again relying on the dashboard the system had given to mark his speed and average race time, he learned from mistakes in the past marathon and would also change by running stronger in the decides and more slowly uphill.
Even if he didn"t make the best time he would tire less in the marathon and still gain experience to learn the best way to run, it was these little things that could often guarantee victory in a high-level compet.i.tion.
In the first few miles of the marathon he sought to run in groups as he had planned, he was always changing groups as one accelerated and another slowed if he did not see a very large climb, curve or descent along the way he would not change the racing pace.
At one point in the race, Jake was recognized by some members who were running in a group, Jake was much more famous after appearing in two television commercials this year and partic.i.p.ating in getting a good placement in some major marathons.
Who recognized Jake was a pro too but didn"t plan on getting a test placement, so they decided to run at the same pace as Jake and always taking turns with someone in the group leading to block the wind and help Jake in the marathon.
Jake was happy with that, but with the consideration of these people than necessarily with the help they would give him in this marathon, but what this group did not know Jake had the system and also this was the third marathon he would run.
So this was meant to be Jake"s best performance in all the marathons he has run so far, so while the people in the group were intent on helping Jake in the marathon they would be helped and would be able to arrive with much shorter time at the end of the marathon.
After all, everyone in the group was professional runners and had good stamina to run, keeping pace was their only difficulty, and with the help of the system, Jake was an expert in keeping pace.
So only when km 25 pa.s.sed did the people in the group fail to keep up with Jake"s pace and had to part with him in order to finish the race, even though it was helped Jake served as a rabbit for those runners who would get a much better time running.
Jake, while he was with the group, managed to save a lot of stamina and even by slowing down the corners and turns and increasing the speed in the decides he was still able to keep up with his planned running pace, Jake was also stopping properly at the back stations to drink some water and cool off.
This was by far Jake"s best performance in marathons and the more he ran the more confident he got.