   Holy crap
  My mother sent this to me in an email. It's about a father that runs marathons... with his quadrapalegic son">youuuuuuuuTUBE.They was an article in Sports Illustrated, that I'll reproduce here:Quote:Strongest Dad in the World[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights topay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles inmarathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in awheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimmingand pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in thesame day.Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his backmountain 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 hislife.This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rickwas strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving himbrain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctorstold him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Puthim in an institution.''But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyesfollowed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to theengineering department at Tufts University and asked if there wasanything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he wastold.``There's nothing going on in his brain.''"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turnsout a lot was going on in his brain.Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor bytouching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally ableto communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high schoolclassmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized acharity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ranmore 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 wassore for two weeks.''That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we wererunning, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed withgiving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into suchhard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 BostonMarathon.``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren'tquite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchaircompetitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massivefield and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the raceofficially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made thequalifying 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 sincehe was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon?Still, Dick tried.Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hourIronmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old studgetting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don'tyou think?Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' hesays.Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rickwith a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24thBoston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters.Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes offthe world record, which, in case you don't keep track of thesethings, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another manin a wheelchair at the time.``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of theCentury.''And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago hehad a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one ofhis arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such greatshape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 yearsago.''So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works inBoston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland,Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches aroundthe 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 reallywants to give him is a gift he can never buy.``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in thechair and I push him once.''that is so freaking amazing. I can't imagine anything like that.   
  That is awesome.   ;  Woah, that's incredible.   ;  Inspiring really, thanks for posting that   ;  omfg... thanks for sharing that (even though I feel like worthless piece of shit now).;  i'm wondering if he could be the world champion if he tryed running the marrathon solo   ;  A really good father would play Half-Life 2 with his quadriplegic son.   ;  Thats amazing, dont know what else to describe it.   ;  Holy crap indeed.   ;  For the past four years, I've worked with disabled people during the summers as a personal care attendant and this kind of thing happens all the time, it really is kind of nuts.   