BOSTON — Somehow, like Forrest Gump, Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot keeps running into disaster.

Cheruiyot grew up in Kenya in such poverty that by 4 he was allowed one meal a day. He did not have shoes until he was 10 or 11. He was sent to live with family members, and they abused him.

Only when he started running did good fortune come, but even that has been strained.

Consider his last three marathons:

¶October 2006 in Chicago: He slipped on a decal on the finish line and skidded across it on his back, feet first. He still won.

¶April 2007 in Boston: In wind gusts of 36 miles an hour, he won in 2 hours 14 minutes 13 seconds, the slowest winning time in 30 years.

¶October 2007 in Chicago: With temperatures approaching 90 degrees, he said, “Even our drinking bottles were hot.” He finished fourth, and in addition to prize money and appearance fees, he collected $500,000 as the men’s winner of the World Marathon Majors’ first two-year cycle.

The problems never seem to end. On Monday, the 29-year-old Cheruiyot will run in the 112th Boston Marathon, a race that Kenyans have dominated for two decades. Cheruiyot will try to become the first Kenyan to win it four times. But the violence in Kenya that affected his tribe and others disrupted his training and his well being.

“I was racing in Brazil in December,” he said. “When I returned, the violence in Kenya was terrible. I stayed there for a week, then went to Namibia in late January to train. We trained there for one month and one week. I was worried, but everything went O.K. for me. I felt safe. My mother and father were O.K., but many friends were affected. Everything is good now, but it affects your mind.

“I didn’t want to hear about things like this anymore. You have to love one another, like your brother and sister.”