Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Read the article first, it'll give you an explanation of the video, which can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly

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 smurf Hoyt, I stink.

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.

smurf'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;'' smurf 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,'' smurf says he was told. ``There's nothing

going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' smurf 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 smurf, 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,'' smurf 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 smurf'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,'' smurf 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 smurf 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, smurf, 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, smurf

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, smurf, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.
smurf

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, smurf 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 smurf 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, smurf and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston,

and smurf, 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.''

Smurf?

I'm guessing his name is shared with a certain word for a certain part of the male reproductive system.

I had goosebumps and tearful eyes through the whole video. Just when you think the world has gone bad, you hear about people like Hoyt.

You'd guess right.

aw... that last part gave me chills/goosebumps, whatever you want to call them.. i havnt seen the video, and i probably wont.. i dont have sound on this computer and my dad is to lazy to fix it -.-

I remember reading the article when I got that issue. It's an absolutely amazing story. Normal marathoners and triathlon competitors seem crazy to me, since I have nowhere near that level of stamina. To do it which towing or pushing someone else is a whole different level.

Yeah, I did a half marathon and I can't imagine doing that twice in a row. To do it while pushing a kid? That just seems impossible to me.

I guess it's just all in the mind. If you want something hard enough, then it is possible.

Wow. I'm amazed, and I'm almost moved to tears reading that and watching that video.

To think someone would have that much strength, stamina, and overall love for his son is just incredible.

I saw their story on Oprah a while back, truely touching.

Yeah totally An awsome bond between a father and a son.