In this corner..................

Landon has officially made weight and is now eligible to compete in his first year of wrestling. To do so, he had to get down to 285 pounds. That's 30 pounds less than his typical weight and 50 pounds less than his weight at this time last year. This has been a cool journey for the entire family and as an exercise science geek/frustrated athlete; I have of course made many observations.

*-It is amazing how much different someone can move with 30 pounds off their butt. He looks amazing, he moves amazing and he can do things he just couldn't before.

*-He has an amazing A.Q. or athlete quotient. By that I mean he can pick stuff up very quick. He's really only been wrestling for a bit over a month but he already has pinned 2 kids and beat another by 15 points in his nine matches.

*-There's no substitute for experience. Two of those other matches were losses to kids that frankly looked a little short and dumpy. However, they were both experienced and knew what they were doing. In a third match he got pinned by a kid that was strong, quick AND knew what he was doing. Humility has been among the good lessons learned by wrestling.

Seeing Landon pay the price to learn and adapt has been inspirational to me. I usually am the one urging him to go the extra mile, to pay the price to be the best he can be. However, his silent but strenuous actions have inspired me to do the same in work, running and life. Sometimes you get the nice payback that your kids teach you something you've been trying to teach them all along.