Be happy with sports

Chapter 303 Using a Coach as an Assistant 9

Jake did not actually expect to see Coach Davis anytime soon, he hoped that after the exams arrived the coach would spend several days preparing to create a suitable training plan for him.

Shortly after Jake had finished running Zack returned to university alone while Coach Davis and Jake went to a nearby diner to talk, Jake had seen a stack of papers in Coach Davis’s hands and knew what the matter was.

"I received the results of your exams yesterday, as you have no health problems or with your body, I decided to make a training plan for you that I had already thought a few days ago."

"After seeing how you have been training now I’m sure you have very big stamina and a natural talent for being a marathoner, which means a lot of the problems other normal athletes have that you don’t have."

"This is a big plus and can also be a disadvantage, even if other athletes don’t train as much as you can still finish the marathon in a shorter time, you have to adapt to a quick time to win."

"Fortunately for you, this does not seem to be a disadvantage as you can still get better, maybe just someone like you can try to break the barrier and run a marathon in less than 2 hours."

Jake knew that it wasn’t really his natural talent but the system that did it for him, but he was surprised how Coach Davis realized that quickly, to Jake’s relief it could be considered a ’talent’.

Jake was a little embarrassed looking at Coach Davis’s well-made training plan, he was waiting for the right moment to tell the coach about his ambition, but Coach Davis ended up working faster than he was.

"Coach, I’m sure your training plan is very good, but I have something I didn’t tell you about my expectations for the next few years in athletics."

"You should know that I always enjoyed running and so I started training for marathons on my own, but that was because I thought it was easier to compete in marathons without good training, and then I found that I had the talent for it."

"In addition to running I had another dream that was getting a lot of Olympic gold medals, so I think I can try to compete in other long-distance and even short distances."

"But I know that for these modalities it is important to have proper training, so I was looking for a multi-modal trainer to at least try so I wanted a training plan that involved other modalities of athletics."

Coach Davis’s first thought of hearing this was that Jake was very greedy and wanted so much from athletics, just specializing in one sport could take several years and needed training and talent to keep up.

Besides, Jake, though very talented, was not only training in athletics and also training in basketball, so it was harder and hoping to compete in various sports, but after thinking a little he decided not to say that.

It wasn’t just because he knew Jake had hired him just because he planned to compete in various sports, but because of the physical exams and fitness tests, he had done with Jake a few days ago.

In these tests, Jake achieved better results than all athletics champions in long-distance competitions and slightly lower than athletes competing in short distance modalities that required more technique and speed.

Even though these exams didn’t show everything a coach needed to know, at least it showed that Jake was much more likely to compete in those competitions than someone who has never competed in any sport before.

So he thought it wouldn’t hurt to do some tests for a few months to see if Jake had the ability to fight for medals in these competitions or not, to do that he would have to change his training plans.

"I will be honest, Jake, I don’t think you have a chance to win multiple medals in different modalities after all long-distance modalities have very different talent requirements than long-distance athletes."

"But we can do some tests over the next few months to see if you can do it or not, but I think for long-distance competitions like 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters you might be able to compete to win now."

Coach Davis wasn’t just trying to appease Jake and really thought that for 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters competitions Jake had a lot of chances to win, after all, Jake had a lot of talent for long-distance running.

Most important for these races besides fitness and training was knowing how to run at the right pace, so Jake could win in several marathons in a row while other elite athletes had fickle results.

As Jake easily ran 10 km in 29 minutes he didn’t have to increase his running pace so much to have a chance of winning, so if Jake had stamina and endurance to run for 50 km every day it should be no problem running faster at a distance smaller.

If Jake could run 12 seconds faster per minute he could guarantee a winning time which should not be too difficult for Jake to get with a few months of training, for the 5,000 meters would be a little harder but it was not impossible.

If he could do that would make history and win three gold medals in one competition, his training would not be much different from the current one and only a few months of some competition he should focus more on.

"If you get enough time to compete in these 3 modes, let’s try and see how you do from 1500 meters and 800 meters, and so on, I don’t think you have the talent to try the 100 meters, but let’s see with the time."

For training he used logic even when he thought Jake could be very greedy in trying to win various sports, it made Jake satisfied and convinced that Tiffany had found the right coach for him.

"I know I’m trying to do something seemingly impossible coach, let’s try to focus first on the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters modalities, then we have time to try the other modalities."

"But I want to be ready for the upcoming Olympics to compete in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters, if we can we will try more modalities as well."

So Coach Davis just nodded, he thought that 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters in more than 3 years would be a reality for Jake if he had the talent, otherwise, Coach Davis would try to get Jake to give up on that idea.

After that Coach Davis returned to the hotel where he lived to redo the training plan, luckily it would not be much different as Jake was not thinking of competing in short distance modalities for years to come.

What Coach Davis didn’t know was that Jake wasn’t in a hurry to start short-range competitions because he knew he would get a lot of statistics over the next few years, so it was only natural that Jake wanted to wait until he was in top physical condition.

With 4 more agility points Jake did not believe that he would not approach the natural talent of the best athletes in the world, maybe he could even become faster than some, after all, Jake would pass the 40 agility points with those 4 points more.

After speaking with coach Davis Jake, he focused back on his basketball training, of course, he continued his daily training with Zack, but for Jake at the moment basketball was more important.

A few days later came the day of the next game of the team Tar Heels, after resting for a few days but the team was very excited even if the next game was as a visitor after all the team was in good time this season.

With a winning streak of 10, they were behind the eleventh against a team they had beaten earlier this season, after a few hours both teams were ready for the game.

The opponent for this game was again the NC State Wolfpack team, the last game ended with an easy victory of the team Tar Heels even if it did not perform very well of the players of the team Tar Heels.

And it looked like it would be the same in that game, in the first half the players of the Tar Heels team were performing far below what they had in the last games, the NC State Wolfpack wasn’t good offensively either so they focused on defense further disrupting the Tar Heels team to make points.

Even though Jake was affected by the poor performance of the team and even getting some points made less than in other games, in the first half he could play for 16 minutes and made 12 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals.

In the second half the game remained very still and was difficult to watch for the people who were present or even for those who were at home, the two coaches seemed to expect such a game and made no change in strategy.

So in the second half, Jake played for 16 minutes and made 12 points, 2 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal, Jake himself was not satisfied with the game he had, but the important thing was that the team Tar Heels came out with the victory.

The Tar Heels team won by 62 points against only 42 points by the NC State Wolfpack, it was a game with a lot of advantage, but with only 62 points made by the Tar Heels team.