This is truly an amazing
story and as I come to the final part of it, I pray for grace to be able to put
action to my goal. Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling
15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzz kill 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, Dick, why not see how
you’d do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick 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, Dick 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 Dick 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, Dick and Rick
saved each other’s life.
Rick, who has his own
apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, 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 pass.
Rick said he bought 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."
What an amazing story that
have changed my life.
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