Henry heads for Carlsbad

Henry Rono, the former triple world record-holder who's making a comeback aged 55, will run the Carlsbad 5000 on April 1.

The world-class 5k road race staged in San Diego is dubbed "World's Fastest 5k" and has the distinction of being a place where world bests are set -- and for featuring separate races for masters. But although Henry will run with world masters mile record-holder Nolan Shaheed at Carlsbad, he is not predicting a super-fast time.

Henry has been getting some stick on the letsrun forum where he logs his progress reports, with some readers disbelieving that he is serious about racing at a high level again, and others obsessing over his weight and why he hasn't lost more despite running about two hours a day for nearly 8 months. He has only had one low-key race this year -- running 19:20 in Cincinnati in December.

But now he appears to biting the bullet. Having enlisted the aid of fans (some of whom have run with Henry) to help convince Carlsbad promoter Mike Long that he is in serious training and is not drinking any more, Henry says: "I will run in Carlsbad between 16:50-17:45 minutes for 5k. Then after that the time will start dropping down constantly."

He's also set a date for a world record attempt: "Should I make announcements that day June 2, 2007, I will be one year old in training for mile. The 4:40 mile record will come down same day."

Is he on track? Yesterday Henry ran an evening one-mile time trial on his home track at altitude in 5:32.21 (splits were 84.16, 83.01, 84.98 and 80.06). So he still has some work to if he is to hit his self-imposed deadline.