What is the one thing you
aspire to be? Rigged up with a computer, Rick is now allowed to control the
cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head. This enabled him to finally
communicate with the world. 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 Dick, 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," Dick 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
Dick’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," Dick 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 Dick 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, Dick, 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, Dick tried.
And what did this accomplish ? Watch the space for part three.
Picture resource: beliefnet.com
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