Father and son Dick and Ricky Hoyt have run together in more than 800 Ironman races (which include swimming, biking, and running). But the son, Ricky, was born with cerebral palsy. To race, he must be pulled, pushed, and carried by his father. There is a part of us that might jump to the conclusion that Ricky does not race at all, but that his father does all the work.

But tens of thousands of TV viewers saw the son's role in 1999, when wind, cold, and an equipment failure made progress hard on Ricky, even though his father was the one pedaling the modified tandem bike. Dick knelt down to his son, contorted and trembling in the cold, as the two were still facing many more miles of race on the defective bike. He said to the child belted to the bicycle seat, "Do you want to keep going, Son?"

The father would be the one enabling and providing the means to overcome, but the son still had to have the heart to finish.