# Chapter 173

Most people dislike or even hate training. I am one of the weird anomalies here in this one, in that I like training. Physical or mental I don’t care, I like them both. Either are an opportunity to learn more or push yourself more and like I said, I generally like that. A younger version of me would have just wanted to push through it and become the best at whatever the objective was. But while the older version of me doesn’t mind being the best at whatever, that is a distant second to the actual training or learning itself. It is great fun working toward a goal and enjoying all the incremental steps to getting there. Yet I find that I am in the overwhelming minority on this one.

I discovered this is the most blatant way when preparing for a bicycle ride across the USA. Yes across the entire USA, 3800 miles total in the convoluted path we took. No we did not go the shortest most direct route. But I get ahead of myself. I trained for months for that trip. I found the toughest steepest grades I could find and I rode them every day - I mean we are gonna be crossing the Rocky Mountains and that ain’t no walk in the park! This training eventually led to me being one of the top riders for the entire trip. I was generally first or second each and every day out of 25-40 riders (the numbers were fluctuating all the time). But the deal is this, I am not a fast rider. It was mostly that the other riders had done no training. Period.

Its not that I am often the best most talented person, but it is instead that I am often the one who put in the training. Embrace the pain, enjoy the learning, go to the head of the class.