Henry Rono - '81 : How fast possible for 5000 ?

Get it together, fool.

I remember the picture of him in this race, from T&FN

You could see his beer gut/roll.

Yeah it is me wrote:

Why do you appear to believe everything you read? A better question might be what would your posts be like if you were sober?

Are you kidding? I read Rono's book. He described it exactly like that.

I do believe he would have run even faster without the booze problem, which he admits to in his book. The book is Olympic dream. An excellent read, at least the first half. The last few chapters, IMO, weren't as good, but still an excellent book overall.

rono fan 2016 wrote:

Yeah it is me wrote:

Why do you appear to believe everything you read? A better question might be what would your posts be like if you were sober?

Are you kidding? I read Rono's book. He described it exactly like that.

I do believe he would have run even faster without the booze problem, which he admits to in his book. The book is Olympic dream. An excellent read, at least the first half. The last few chapters, IMO, weren't as good, but still an excellent book overall.

Another gullible sort...Of course Hank had a drinking problem. It doesn't mean he ran nearly all out for an hour the day of the 5000m. For Rono that would have meant he ran at least 12.5 miles.

I hate to speculate about what Rono could have run; I think such speculations sometimes do an injustice to both Henry and the great runners who came after him. I really don't doubt the story about his drinking the night before the race and his subsequent hangover; I recall that Henry himself later joked that he was glad the track was round, because his head was spinning so much that he was just trying to keep up with it as he ran around the track that evening. That story was also consistent with what I've heard from directors of other races, where Henry ran spectacular times after drinking heavily the previous night.

The part about his near flat-out hour run that morning to "sweat out" the alcohol is also consistent with similar stories of his efforts to "sweat out" the previous night's alcohol with pre-race workouts. I think it was also consistent with his usual race-day preparations. Henry has said that, on the morning of his great 10,000-meter victory over Salazar in 1982, he did a very intense session of hill repetitions for forty-five minutes.

To me, one of the most amazing things about that 5,000-meter world record (and a number of Henry's other performances, including the 10,0000-meter race against Salazar) was how quickly Henry transformed himself from "hobby jogger" condition to world-class shape. In June 1981, he went over to Europe and entered a 5,000-meter race in Finland, where he got double-lapped. I think his time was 16-something; I remember seeing the results at the time. He spent the month of July training in Germany and losing weight. In August, he ran a series of races with increasingly quick times, including a 13:22 and, two days later, a 13:12 -- the season's best time. He then ran a season's best 10,000 and a season's best 3,000. In September, he broke his own world record at 5,000 meters.

Of course, it's likely that various inaccuracies and exaggerations have crept into stories about Henry Rono, but there are also a lot of reliable eyewitnesses and race results to back up some of the most unbelievable ones.

eventually speculate or demure

what if he had :

1) not drunk so heavily night before

2) not run "near flat-out for 1 hour+" prior to 5k

how fast if sober + no morning run in '81 & fastest possible pacers for Knarvik ?

i want a number...

I will go with 12:56. I remembered Aoutia was so determined on breaking his 3000M. The one race where he missed it by about .13 of a second the guy nearly pulled his hair out. Don't think he had the speed Aoutia did, but if there was a rabbit, he was sober and enough $ was on the table I say Moorcraft or Aoutia would not have gotten his record. It would have lasted until Komen or Geb broke it.

I Will Bite wrote:

I will go with 12:56. I remembered Aoutia was so determined on breaking his 3000M. The one race where he missed it by about .13 of a second the guy nearly pulled his hair out. Don't think he had the speed Aoutia did, but if there was a rabbit, he was sober and enough $ was on the table I say Moorcraft or Aoutia would not have gotten his record. It would have lasted until Komen or Geb broke it.

Who are these athletes, Moorcraft and Aoutia?

Very subtle changes in spelling. Like it.

The athlete, Moorcroft, ran practically half his 13:00 solo, miles in front of the field. I dare say that was also worth around 12:56 with a rabbit to 4k.

ventolin^3 wrote:

eventually speculate or demure

what if he had :

1) not drunk so heavily night before

2) not run "near flat-out for 1 hour+" prior to 5k

how fast if sober + no morning run in '81 & fastest possible pacers for Knarvik ?

i want a number...

You are obsessed with these numbers. :)

Thanks for the invitation to speculate, but I demur. (No "e" for the verb, I believe.)

I still think Rono was one of the greatest natural talents ever, maybe the greatest. His antics described in his book are hard to comprehend. He was clean of PEDs, unfortunately his drug of choice was alcohol. Had he eaten right and of course not been a drunk there is no telling what he may have accomplished. For sure, sub 13 in the 5000m, maybe sub 8 in the steeple. His race against Salazar in Eugene in the rain prior to to the 1982 Boston Marathon was incredible, grossly over weight and still running 27:30.

I exchanged a couple of emails with him in the past and he is humble man, one of the all time greats for sure.

Having the discipline to take care of yourself when training is over is part of the equation of success.

It's a stupid question to ask how fast Rono could have been if he didn't drink.

Perhaps it made him faster because it prevented him from doing heroin.

Runners art wrote:

Having the discipline to take care of yourself when training is over is part of the equation of success.

It's a stupid question to ask how fast Rono could have been if he didn't drink.

It's not stupid at all.

Runners art wrote:

Perhaps it made him faster because it prevented him from doing heroin.

This is stupid.

What if I didn't stay out all night chasing chicks and getting stomach aches from eating out chick's asses? How fast could I have been? I ran 13:35 for 5000m despite this.

Rio22 wrote:

Rono was one the greatest distance runner in history. Perhaps the best. But I don't recall Rono ever running a 13:05 in Spokane.

Yep I read it again. I suspect it was 13:21.

But the meet wasn't a big one. Though Hassan ran the 400 that night and failed to finish

It was so cold, that likely it shrunk my watch.

And for those who dis the drinkers, there were a lot of WR holding drinkers. Don't misjudge the value of getting adrian quist every now and then. Too many runners today pick and choose everythign from their races to carrots. Back then we ran hard and partied hard. And have no regrets.

he was one of the greatest talents ever and hence, you have to say that under the same set of circumstances, training, training partners, different substances, and so forth, he would have run as fast as anyone in history. But, of course, he would have run substantially faster after 1978 had he had the discipline necessary. And we all would have run substantially faster with the right work ethic, health, and training partners, etc.

Avocado's Number wrote:

That story was also consistent with what I've heard from directors of other races, where Henry ran spectacular times after drinking heavily the previous night.

In that case maybe the drinking made him go faster. Maybe it got him real relaxed and got his blood going. Doesn't work for me though.

I'm surprised you even consider it a WR giving it was run at some obscure meet in Knarvik. You question Florence as a venue for WR's yet this tiny little meet is fine?

Your logic is as bad as the pacing in Kipketer's 1:41.11 WR!

I had to pull William Kemei (3:31.40) out of a bar one night, the night before a race here in Australia in 1995. Walked past and saw him sitting at the bar (in a cowboy hat) drinking on his own, He also tried to 'sweat it out' in the morning, but Kim McDonald pulled him from the meet and sent him back to Kenya.

Reports of him drinking the night before are wildly known.

a drunk rono was far better than dixon who was nearly as good as a cheating viren.

go figure out how good a sober rono could have been.

given that the african world records are PED records.

maybe rono is goat. like ryan is goat.