Rick Hoyt, who partook in more than 30 Boston Marathons with his father Dick, passed away yesterday of a respiratory illness. He was 61.
The younger Hoyt was born with cerebral palsy and his parents were told he would have no quality of life. The Hoyts would have none of that and did everything they could to integrate him as a full member of society. While still a teenager, the Hoyts began competing in local races eventually running the Boston Marathon together for the first time in 1980. Over the next three plus decades, Team Hoyt would compete in marathons, triathlons and numerous other races all over the world. The elder Hoyt retired in 2014 and would be replaced by a family friend named Brian Lyons from 2015 to 2019. Sadly, both the elder Hoyt and Lyons died within a year of each other in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Whatever limitations Rick Hoyt’s body placed upon him, he lived a full and rewarding life by any measure for he experienced things and went to places few of us ever see. I can only hope he left this world with those joys in his heart. R.I.P.
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