Major Changes Hit Northern Arizona Elite Boston Marathon for the 32nd time—each year pushing his son Rick, who’s a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, in a custom-racing wheelchair. After last year’s race, Dick wanted to retire. Rick, however, wanted to cover the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston again.

He’s going to—this year with a new running partner. Dr. Bryan Lyons, a dentist in Billerica, Massachusetts, and a family friend of the Hoyts, will push Rick in the 119th running of Boston.

“It was sort of shocking for [Dick] to ask me,” Lyons told the Lowell Sun. "My friends told me [the Hoyts] don't want the big name, they want the big heart. If that's the least that I can provide, I'm happy."

This will be the seventh Boston Marathon for Lyons, 44, who has run for the Hoyt Foundation marathon team since 2008, with a best of 4:15:29, which he ran in 2010.

Lyons does have some experience running with Rick, 53. Since January, the two have completed a few shorter local road races and gone on training runs together, according to the Lowell Sun. If Rick isn’t available, Lyons puts sandbags into the wheelchair to simulate his weight.

Although Dick Hoyt, 74, won’t be running, he won’t absent from the marathon. He’s the race’s grand marshal, and will ride in a pace car ahead of the lead runners.

The Hoyt’s story, chronicled by Runner’s World in 2007, has inspired many. Since 1977 when Rick asked Dick to push him through a 5-mile race, the father-son duo has completed more than 1,100 races, including Ironman triathlons.

“Dick will continue to be at the head of the field, leading 30,000 runners on their trek to Boston,” Tom Grilk, Executive Director of the Boston Athletic Association, said in a press release. “Dick and Rick Hoyt will forever be synonymous with the Boston Marathon and the sport of running.”

Now, Lyons’ name will be attached, too. Once Dick decided not to run, Lyons was an easy choice for the Hoyts.

"Bryan will be out there, and he'll do his best, we know that," Dick Hoyt told the Lowell Sun. "He's a great athlete, a great person, and the type of person that we want to be pushing Rick. And Rick wants Bryan to be the one to do it."