Running for His Life

Once left for dead, a coach now teaches others to endure.

A Son of God

He was on fire. It was 3 a.m., and most of his classmates were dead -- beaten and burned alive by kids and grownups they'd known most of their lives. <br><Br> Smoldering bodies lay all around him in the small room. He had used some of them to keep from being hit by the fiery branches tossed in by the mob outside. For hours he had heard them laughing, singing, clapping, taunting. Waving their machetes, the Hutus had herded more than a hundred Tutsi teenagers and teachers from the Kibimba school in Burundi into the room before sunset. A couple dozen were still alive, moaning in pain, dreaming of death. <br><Br> "There weren't that many of us left," he says. "A guy said, 'I don't want to die like a dog.' He jumped from a window. They cut him to pieces. Then they started a fire on the roof. After a while, it started falling on me, and I held up my right arm as it came down, trying to pull bodies over me. My back and arm were on fire -- it hurt so bad. I decided to kill myself by diving from a pile of bodies onto my head. I tried twice, but it didn't work. Then I heard a voice. It said, 'You don't want to die. Don't do that.' Outside, we could hear Hutus giving up and leaving. I heard one say, 'Before we go, let's make sure everyone is dead.' Three came inside. One put a spear through a guy's heart. I heard the voice say, 'Get out.' There was a body next to me, burned down to the bones. I grabbed a bone -- it was hot in my hands -- and used it to break the bar on the window. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to be identifiable. I wanted my parents to know me. I didn't want to be all burned up, like everyone else. I was jumping to let them kill me." <br><Br> He jumped. Somehow, amid the uproar of genocide, at least for a few seconds, no one saw him. His back was on fire, his legs were smoking, and his feet were raw with pain. He ran. <br><Br> If you could call it running. <br><Br> "Gilbert! Gilbert!" Almost a decade later, on a warm, clear day in March 2003, Gilbert Tuhabonye crossed the finish line of a 10,000-meter race in Austin, Texas. Hundreds of people clapped, and many called his name. He had finished ahead of some 14,000 runners, but not all of them. <br><Br> "Coach, you're awesome," one woman yelled. "I love you. You're No. 1, Gilbert!" In fact, he was No. 3 in a race he'd won the previous year and was favored to win again this time. <br><Br> Disappointing as it was, Gilbert's third-place finish couldn't change one thing: More than 8,000 miles from home, he is an Austin celebrity, the most popular running coach in a town of rabid runners. The governor seeks him out. Kids ask for his autograph. Rich white women pay him to order them to run laps. His students at the Gilbert's Gazelles running club see him as a savior, optimistic when he has every right to be withdrawn and angry. A man on a mission: to show the world what one man -- set on fire and left to die a decade ago -- can do. A man with a last name (pronounced "Too-ha-bon-yay") almost too good to be true. It means "a son of God." <br><br> "In Burundi," Gilbert explains, "your last name has to have meaning. When I was born, it was a difficult time. It was right after the war. There had been a big drought, crickets attacked the crops -- and then my mother broke her ankle. When I was born, she said, 'This is not my son. This is a son of God.' " <br><Br> In the living room of his Austin apartment, Gilbert is beating on an imaginary drum, playing along with a CD of Burundian music. His pretty wife, Triphine, plays with their daughter, Emma. At home, the couple speak mostly Kirundi, their native tongue, though they try to speak English around their little girl. <br><Br> The apartment is cluttered with Emma's toys. On the walls are the flag of Burundi and photos of Gilbert running; a Bible sits on a table. The next song comes on, from the '60s, called "Yes, I Love Micombero," about a Tutsi president from back then. <br><br> "If you say [Micombero's] name in front of a Hutu," Gilbert says, "he will kill you." He pretends to play some of the other instruments. "In Burundi, the music is good and the climate is beautiful. If there was peace, I'd go there to train. It's paradise." <br><Br> Gilbert was born in Burundi in 1974. His Tutsi parents were farmers, raising corn, potatoes, peas and beans. As a boy, he ran everywhere. Most of all, he loved to chase the family's cows. In seventh grade, he went to a boarding school in Kibimba, about 150 miles from home. Of the thousand or so students, about 60 percent were Hutus. The rest were Tutsis. <br><Br>

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