The Hoyts... and the many like them.

Have you ever heard the story of the Hoyts? They are a father and son who do Ironman together. The son is pushed and pulled by his father through the entire race.

For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.

At Rick’s birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development.

"It’s been a story of exclusion ever since he was born," Dick says. "When he was eight months old the doctors told us we should just put him away — he’d be a vegetable all his life, that sort of thing. Well those doctors are not alive any more, but I would like them to be able to see Rick now."

Watching the footage from the 1997 Ironman in Hawaii, and watching this father-son team, I knew I had to be a part of an event like this. It is truly one of the most inspirational stories I have ever seen, and it truly champions the power of the human being. For those of us doing Ironman this year, keep the Hoyts, and the Blazeman (who completed Ironman last year while afflicted with Lou Gehrig's Disease), and all those overcoming great adversity in mind. They show us all the value and stength of human courage and spirit.

My good friend Vince is on his last days of a 45-day treatment for skin cancer on his face. To look at him, it is hard to argue that the cure seems a heck of a lot worse that the cause. But Vince, and it should come as no surprise, is a fighter. And he has jumped through whatever was necessary to achieve his goals. He dropped 20+ pounds and trained relentlessly to qualify for the Boston marathon, and his struggle there was just a precursor to what he has done to battle this disease. I say this because today is his last day of treatment, and he's battered and bruised from it all. It has taken it's toll, and I've seen it in that he's not his boisterous self, his usual free-spirited sometimes-know-it-all self... It's sad, but it also shows that he's human, and battling for his life is a true example that life is the fight.

And the poetry in all of this is not to take away from our own accomplishments (me with nothing but a broken thumb to worry about), but to recognize that the power of events like the Ironman is to bring out the very essence of us all. The Ironman has value in our society. Even more value than we realize to help shape and change the world.

The Ironman is open to all people who are willing to commit themselves, regardless of whether we were born gifted, or "male" (given that in many sports the female athlete gets less respect), or able-bodied, or have survived cancer, or are still fighting a deadly disease. Simply because we are here, we can do this. And, with that, we show that we are all capable of amazing achievement and, while we may not make $25 million a year playing our sport or be watched by billions and have our face on a cereal box, this cannot diminish or devalue our effort, commitment and achievement. It is a completely open race, allowing anybody to take the risk and say "I can", to dream, to realize a dream and work hard towards it.

When I went to Ironman in 2001 to sign up, I was sitting in the now-Starbucks-but-then Boar's Head Tavern, watching the finishers come in at night, when a lady who had an art gallery on the upper floor of this building came up to my table and offered my brother, my friend and I free entry to the gallery. We politely declined, saying we wanted to stay outside and watch the Ironman athletes. She snuffed and said "I can't believe you actually want to watch all these EGO's..." I told her "I'm not watching 'ego's', I'm watching people, one by one, do something I've dreamed of doing but haven't done... yet". She said "it's just so egocentric it's disgusting."

I won't discuss my thoughts on her at the time, other than thinking it ironic that she was talking about being disgusted by egocentricity when she was, in my humble opinion, begging us to come look at HER art... But egotism is, by my definition, worrying about how others view you. In a race, it's judging yourself by how others did in relation to you. When the battle is your own, when the struggle is you vs. the conditions of the race (including a fear of swimming, a blown knee, a sweltering heat, an illness, a broken thumb, cancer, skin cancer, and so on) then it's not ego at work... It's living.

Click on the URL below to see amazing video footage of the entire process for the Hoyts. Watching the Ironman Hawaii footage from 1997 appreciate the sport that much more:

http://tinyurl.com/h9fzq