Henry Rono Watch: Legend still targeting WR in M55 mile
Henry Rono, 56, whose training and running we’ve been following for several years, says he graduated from college yesterday — three decades after setting a bunch of distance world records while competing for Washington State University. Good for him! Apparently, he earned a master’s degree in special education from Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque. But on the letsrun.com message board thread devoted to his goal of breaking the M55 WR in the mile of 4:40.4. Henry mentions a series of mile runs he’s running this month, called RonoRun Mobile One.
On Simon Martin’s running blog in Colorado, this series was described in March:
Henry Rono, the former multiple world-record-holder who has been blogging for almost two years about his aim to take the 4:40 world mile record for masters from Nolan Shaheed, has now announced a series of races that amounts to a world tour.
While fans want to now if he is going to be in sub-17 shape for the Carlsbad 5k in a couple of weeks, as promised, Henry seems more focused on racing himself to world record shape. He says he will take the record by September, in Norway. So far this year his times have been average and he’s still to get anywhere near 5 minutes, let alone catch Shaheed, the legendary West Coast-based jazz trumpeter who trains two hours a day and eats just once a day.
As far as I can make out from Henry’s idiosyncratic posts on his dedicated thread on the Letsrun.com forums, he is planning a series of track events that will include 1-mile and 5k races or time trials, starting with a 5k tt on March 29 in Albuquerque, then on to California, then Spokane, WA and so on to Europe, four meets in two countries, and then to Norway – “later in the season by then I should have the mile record”. He’s calling it the “RonoRun Mobile Mile Run”.
But a correction, Simon: The M55 mile WR is 4:40.4 by Aussie Jack Ryan in 1977. Nolan holds the M55 American record.
On May 1, Henry posted this note:
I am right here in Cincinnati, Ohio, Looking forward for Mobile-RonoRun-one mile tomorrow evening at 6:30pm May 2, 2008 Saturday I will take a day off then Sunday hit half-marathon hard. That could be my usual every weekend long runs. Come over to expose for a hand shake and run with me slowly not too fast.
Of course, today (Saturday) is May 3. Hope he has a good run.
Henry Rono Watch: Too poor to journey to Carlsbad?
Former WR distance legend Henry Rono, who turned 56 last month, is a constant presence on a letsrun.com message board. And a recent post by Henry is very sad. Someone asked if he would be competing at April’s Carlsbad 5K, and he said he couldn’t afford to get there from his New Mexico home without event help. He wrote: “ME! pay my way to Carlsbad? Are you kidding me? I have not pay my rent for the last two months. I am knocking every door in every company to hire me in the last three month.”
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Henry Rono Watch: Invitation for mile race on April 7
Henry Rono won’t race Nolan Shaheed at the Carlsbad 5000 on April 1, as I suggested earlier (because Nolan has a gig in Africa). But now Henry has been asked to run a masters mile in San Francisco the following weekend. According to the letsrun.com message board thread devoted to Henry’s goal of an M55 masters mile record (now 62 pages!), Mike Fanelli on Jan. 26 posted this note: “The nature of my message is to pesonally invite you to compete the following week (Saturday, April 7th) in San Francisco in a one mile track race. I am co-organizing the masters mile in conjunction with the Johnny Mathis Track & Field Invitational at San Francisco State University.” Henry is down to just under 170 pounds, and continues his hill runs (shown here.)
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Dave Clingan - February 5, 2007
Henry has also been invited to, and is considering, the Masters Invitational Mile on May 12th in Canby, Oregon. Topping the field this year will be Pete Magill, Tony Young and Kevin Paulk. Nolan Shaheed has also accepted.
A tentative entry list is posted along with other info on the web site at:
http://mastersmile.oregonathletics.org/
Anyone interested in running (open to ages 30+) should contact me at xroads@xro.com.
-Dave
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Henry’s just told us that he managed 5:50 for his latest mile effort.
Although he keeps posting his training log, we Rono-watchers haven’t seen any real progress in his race times over the last 2 years; in fact he now seems to be going backwards!
Thanks for the correction; Nolan is so much the man to beat I tend to forget that he isn’t the world record holder in the 55-59 age group; amazingly, Jack Ryan’s time was set in 1977.
Henry reports he followed Saturday evening’s mile with a Sunday half-marathon — the 10th Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinmati — which he completed in 1:58.89.
The official results give him a chip time of 1:59.02. He was 48th in his age group.
Henry said that he planned to break 5 minutes in January. Of 2006!! It’s been nearly a year and a half since and he is nowhere close to breaking 5 minutes.
From his posts, his training appears to be little more than slow running with a sauna after. There is no mention of speedwork.
Now, Henry is gaining weight with the outlandish claim that it will make him faster. Henry wasn’t on the thin side to begin with, so his claim is even more incredible.
Henry’s response to his critics? “Wait and see.”
How are you? I’m here in Yemen training and I’m losing weight.So my claim will come true.
Thanks for your coment
Henry
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