Christ Won The Race

"Are you not aware that those racing in a stadium are, indeed, all racing, yet one is obtaining the prize? Thus be racing that you may be grasping it...lest somehow, when heralding to others, I myself may become disqualified." (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Paul says he is not engaging in the race "voluntarily" - "for wages" (for a prize) - but "involuntarily". 

"For if I should be bringing the evangel, it is not for me to boast in, for necessity is lying upon me, for it were woe to me if I should not be bringing the evangel!  For if I am engaging in this voluntarily, I have wages, yet if involuntarily, I have been entrusted with an administration." (1 Corinthians 9:16-17)

He (or we) need not train to run a race to win a prize that Christ has already won. Humanity's race is simply to "grasp" what Christ has won on its behalf. All will "grasp" it when God's plan is consummated at the close of the eons. In the interim, we are "enslaved" in the role God has predetermined. Trying to qualify ourselves for any other prize is "punching the air". We "become disqualified" in any race for a "corruptible wreath" requiring our own religious self effort.