I first heard of Henry Rono as a high schooler in the late 1980s. My coach, who was a school record holder at a PAC 10 school, had run against him and told stories of him, and how impossible it was to compete with the Kenyans (strange to me in retrospect because he himself had defeated Samson Kimombwa, the 10000m world record holder before Rono, in a race). Henry had a huge impact on the people who competed against him.
I firmly believe that Henry Rono was inadvertently responsible for the US distance running slump that began with my generation of runners and extended until about Galen Rupp's era. When I was coming up in running, you couldn't find someone who believed that Africans were beatable and even the mainstream media would regularly speak of the Kenyan genetic advantage or the "they run 10 miles to school every day" trope. Coaches had given up, were experimenting with Coe-inspired "less is more and faster is better" training, and I can only assume this was because they had no answer to the incredible force that was Henry Rono. There was nothing like him before and there hasn't been anything like him since.
When the big thread showed up here in 2006 (perhaps the end of the golden era of letsrun), I followed it with great interest. I was past my competitive years, but still experimenting with training, hoping that finally training properly would bring some new PRs. I'd also spent some years at WSU, run for WSU, and had lived with a very talented Kenyan while I was there. As fate would have it, my job moved from a foreign country to Washington DC, so in the fall of 2006 I came back to the US, collected my car in Seattle, and drove it cross country with my father. I wanted to see parts of the country I'd not seen yet, so I took an indirect route to hit some running hotspots along the way. I stopped in Pullman the first day and did one of my favorite routes there. Stopped in SLC on day two and ran another favorite there (I'd lived in Park City immediately post college). On day three I passed through Albuquerque to meet Henry Rono. I connected with him through the big thread, got his number, and we arranged to do an 80 minute morning run in the hills above Albuquerque.
My meeting with Henry was fascinating; he was a very kind and interesting individual. We spoke extensively of his time in Pullman, of John Chaplin, and of Henry's career and running exploits. I learned quite a lot about the legend I'd heard about at the beginning of my life as a runner. Although I did not ask for it, he gave me an 8 x 10 photo and added a personalized signature. I also have a large poster of him that John Chaplin gave me, with Henry coming around a curve and his four world records in a futuristic computer font. I'd always wanted to circle back and have Henry sign that poster but never did. I'm extremely thankful that I had the opportunity to spend a morning with one of my childhood heroes.
It would be impossible for me to list the ways that Henry Rono had an impact on my life. Sometimes a small change in direction in one's life (transferring to WSU, living with a foreign student) can end up becoming an entirely different trajectory in life. This is the impact that a legend like Henry Rono has on the world.
God bless you Henry, and rest in peace!