Wow, I'm speechless. Amazing video about a father and son.

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Hoyts
This story and others like it are very inspirational for me and it truly makes me appreciate life.
 

Rage (SoCal)

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That's truely amazing. Let me just say, that his father is a damn beast! He's an amazing example of a human being and its people like him that shows us how great mankind can be. Thankfully.
 
Jayhawkk

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Great video and an amazing show of a father-son bond.
 
OCCFan023

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a story that truely shows and reaffirms the thought that true kindness and love exists.. very moving
 
B5150

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I keep trying to type something and nothing comes out but...
 
somewhatgifted

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As if marathons werent hard enough.... amazing.
 

size

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Here is some more.
This is a clip with the father and son talking about their activities.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Here is an article about them by Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated.

Strongest Dad in the World

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dik Hoyt, I'm lousy.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day.

Dik's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dik says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dik says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."

"Tell him a joke," Dik countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."

Yeah, right. How was Dik, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dik says. "I was sore for two weeks."

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dik's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dik was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dik and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dik, why not a triathlon?"

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dik tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dik, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dik does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dik and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."

And Dik got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."

So, in a way, Dik and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dik, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."
 
somewhatgifted

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just think of all the disabled people you see in the mall, all the disabled people left at home, all the disabled people forgotten by time and ignored by society. When you walk past a man in a hallway you say hello... its common courtesy... but how many wounldnt even think to say hello to someone whos disabled and appears to have "nothing going on in there." Imagine being 100% cohoerent with no tools or ability to communicate to the world, never being able to make ANY decisions pertaining to your life. Imagine being a bystander in the greatest thing youll ever have. your life. go rick
 
TheUnlikelyToad

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**** dude, give a brother a warning about that video or something...

I must be pregnant getting all emotional first thing in tha morning.

That's rough.
 
Pitbull954

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WOW..... What an amazing man! I'm speechless, stongest dad in the world is right....
 

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stories like that make me love being a father even more!!!!!!
 
Iron Warrior

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Wow, I don't have a word in my vocabulary that's kind enough to describe that father, awesome story.
 
Rivet

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Thats nuts! (in a good way). I have a "disabled" friend and I did this ONCE with her. Went running while pushing her chair for a few hours (this was when I really into cardio). I almost puked when I was done. The only advantage is when your going downhill the weight of the chair pulls you a bit but going uphill is crazy. Now this team is hardcore!
 
f18jock

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Jeez, talk about a "big, tough, Marine" feeling like a big self-centerd P***y.

Very humbling story.
 
bosco

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i bookmarked the page. it's inspiration beyond inspiration. truly speechless.
 

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