RIP Henry K Rono

HRE wrote:

Henry was a friend of a good friend of mine and I got to know him by way of this friend. It came in the 80s after my friend had moved to Boston from Boulder and Henry followed him shortly afterward. Needing a place for Henry to crash until he had his own place other my friend's place (his wife would have left him if Henry lived with them) I offered my apartment a bit outside Boston for three weeks when I was going to be away. Henry was in his own place by the time I was home but I got to know him.

At the time Henry's life was in a really bad spot. He'd been living in homeless shelters at times. He'd been in jail in New Jersey briefly because he'd been misidentified as someone who had robbed a bank. Our mutual friend had to go there and show the cops they had the wrong man.

Before Henry and my friend moved to Boston they had been training together in Boulder in 1983 and my friend was running Boston that year. Henry decided he wanted to make his marathon debut there. Because calling the BAA to see if they'd enter him was not a toll call for me, they asked if I would call them. It was an interesting call. The big question whoever I talked to (it was not Jock Semple but he seemed to enjoy yelling at people as much as Semple did) asked was if Henry had ever run a marathon. He hadn't and there was a lot of yelling about how not just anyone could enter the Boston Marathon. My favorite comment was "I suppose Rono thinks he can enter any race he wants just because he has four world records." Then he asked if Henry had been training, he was, and asked what I thought Henry might do in a marathon.

I said that if you followed Henry's career you'd know that he well could win the race in under record time. Or he could get to the airport and decide changing flights and going to visit friends in another city was a better thing for him to do than come and run the Boston Marathon. I hung up not knowing what the BAA would do and heard nothing more until I read the race preview in the Boston Globe on the weekend before the race. The final sentence was "an interesting development in this year's race is the entry of multiple world record holder Henry Rono." But Henry did not turn up.

Once relocated I took him to a couple AA meetings and did a couple runs with him. One of them came when we'd spent the previous night at someone's house. He went out for his Sunday long run about twenty minutes before I did. About an hour into my run I caught him. Back at the house he told me that I "was very good runner." You couldn't get a compliment from a better source. I was not going to argue even if I didn't completely agree.

That same evening he and I and a couple friends drove out to western Massachusetts for a five mile race in Springfield. After the race Henry told me he wasn't going back to Boston. He'd met a group of Kenyan runners who were living in Albany and he was going to stay with them. He thanked me for the ride. I asked what he was going to do about getting his things from Boston. He had a couple gym bags draped over his shoulders. He looked a little puzzled by the question, then nodded toward each bag and said something like, "It's all here." That was the last I saw or heard from him.

I've some to think of him as a kind of character from Greek Tragedy. He was so gifted and so tough in a race, maybe more than anyone else, certainly more than all but a very, very, tiny number. But I think at heart he was just a farm kid from the Kenyan boonies and the life he lived there did not prepare him at all for the life his gift brought him too and absolutely not for people who wanted to use him for their own ends. He surely had his flaws but we all do. Mostly ours don't get played out in public view like his sometimes did. I've gone back and forth trying to decide if his running talent was a blessing or a curse for him.

I could write a lot more but it's maybe already too long and if it is I apologize. But I've I did know him and have thought a lot at times about how we often think that someone who is so good at a particular thing should have it made in life and I think Henry's life showed how that's not always true. When I saw he was going back to Kenya I hoped he could find some peace in his last years. And knowing a legend personally is not something I do a lot. I felt a need to say more than just RIP.

Ray wrote:

HRE wrote:

Henry was a friend of a good friend of mine and I got to know him by way of this friend. It came in the 80s after my friend had moved to Boston from Boulder and Henry followed him shortly afterward. Needing a place for Henry to crash until he had his own place other my friend's place (his wife would have left him if Henry lived with them) I offered my apartment a bit outside Boston for three weeks when I was going to be away. Henry was in his own place by the time I was home but I got to know him.

At the time Henry's life was in a really bad spot. He'd been living in homeless shelters at times. He'd been in jail in New Jersey briefly because he'd been misidentified as someone who had robbed a bank. Our mutual friend had to go there and show the cops they had the wrong man.

Before Henry and my friend moved to Boston they had been training together in Boulder in 1983 and my friend was running Boston that year. Henry decided he wanted to make his marathon debut there. Because calling the BAA to see if they'd enter him was not a toll call for me, they asked if I would call them. It was an interesting call. The big question whoever I talked to (it was not Jock Semple but he seemed to enjoy yelling at people as much as Semple did) asked was if Henry had ever run a marathon. He hadn't and there was a lot of yelling about how not just anyone could enter the Boston Marathon. My favorite comment was "I suppose Rono thinks he can enter any race he wants just because he has four world records." Then he asked if Henry had been training, he was, and asked what I thought Henry might do in a marathon.

I said that if you followed Henry's career you'd know that he well could win the race in under record time. Or he could get to the airport and decide changing flights and going to visit friends in another city was a better thing for him to do than come and run the Boston Marathon. I hung up not knowing what the BAA would do and heard nothing more until I read the race preview in the Boston Globe on the weekend before the race. The final sentence was "an interesting development in this year's race is the entry of multiple world record holder Henry Rono." But Henry did not turn up.

Once relocated I took him to a couple AA meetings and did a couple runs with him. One of them came when we'd spent the previous night at someone's house. He went out for his Sunday long run about twenty minutes before I did. About an hour into my run I caught him. Back at the house he told me that I "was very good runner." You couldn't get a compliment from a better source. I was not going to argue even if I didn't completely agree.

That same evening he and I and a couple friends drove out to western Massachusetts for a five mile race in Springfield. After the race Henry told me he wasn't going back to Boston. He'd met a group of Kenyan runners who were living in Albany and he was going to stay with them. He thanked me for the ride. I asked what he was going to do about getting his things from Boston. He had a couple gym bags draped over his shoulders. He looked a little puzzled by the question, then nodded toward each bag and said something like, "It's all here." That was the last I saw or heard from him.

I've some to think of him as a kind of character from Greek Tragedy. He was so gifted and so tough in a race, maybe more than anyone else, certainly more than all but a very, very, tiny number. But I think at heart he was just a farm kid from the Kenyan boonies and the life he lived there did not prepare him at all for the life his gift brought him too and absolutely not for people who wanted to use him for their own ends. He surely had his flaws but we all do. Mostly ours don't get played out in public view like his sometimes did. I've gone back and forth trying to decide if his running talent was a blessing or a curse for him.

I could write a lot more but it's maybe already too long and if it is I apologize. But I've I did know him and have thought a lot at times about how we often think that someone who is so good at a particular thing should have it made in life and I think Henry's life showed how that's not always true. When I saw he was going back to Kenya I hoped he could find some peace in his last years. And knowing a legend personally is not something I do a lot. I felt a need to say more than just RIP.

Well said.

Amen brother!

4 Minute Mi-liar wrote:

I will never forget that summer of '78. You'd wake up and eagerly pick up the newspaper and find the sports section to see what record Henry Rono broke the night before.

I also remember the resentment that people had for the African runners in the NCAA because like the BYU runners of today... they were all older and usually Army vets. Rono and others weren't fully appreciated because of that resentment.

Finally, the '70s and '80s were an era that even many of the greatest runners lived off of a cheap pizza and a six pack. Lots of partying as well. One wonders what Henry Rono could have done with today's tech, training and support.

I don't get to Pullman, WA very often, but the few times I have I just stare at their modest track facilities and think about the amazing runners who have run there.