Sunday’s blog, Gifted and Talented?, pointed out that it’s not talent, it’s hard work – TRAINING – that leads to extraordinary performance.

My son, Mark, the competitive stair racer, sent me a quote from Once a Runner by John L. Parker. I posted it as a comment, but most readers won’t see it there. It’s worth a separate blog:

What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared, to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that? – From Once a Runner by John L. Parker

The Apostle Paul understood it, as we shared in the original blog:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9.24 – 27, ESV)