We ate lotsa lobstah at the Orono athletes banquet. The steak line was really short. But most of all we savored our greats at the first USATF masters awards ceremony ever held at outdoor nationals. Until now, the 30-year awards program has chosen and announced our top athletes at the December viagra online convention — where the prized people rarely showed. But Dave Clingan’s initiative to honor our best in person was a great success. Check out the delight in the faces of our honorees (including Nolan Shaheed and Alisa Harvey). I hope to add captions to this photo gallery soon.

Check the faces. Jai Black’s focus at the start. Her joy on the winner’s podium. Rita Hanscom’s strain at the tape. Steven Robbins’ exhaustion. Earl Fee’s intensity. Becky Sisley’s drive. Sid Howard’s disappointment. Tony Echeandia’s tender family moment. My wife, Chris, and I shots close to 3,000 photos at USATF masters nationals early this month. Several hundred of the best are now posted. They tell a story of determination, sacrifice and just plain fun. (Even the officials cut loose, racing golf carts at the end of the meet.)

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On Sept. 11, delegates to the WMA General Assembly in Riccione, Italy, will pick a site for the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships. Whether this 9/11 will be a masters disaster depends on the assembly’s verdict. The bid cities are Sacramento and Porto Alegre. Brazil’s candidacy scares me. South America is a rookie at age-group meets, and the event will be in January, I’m told — terrible for Northern Hemisphere athletes. (As well, many people recall the mess at the last WAVA world meet held in a developing country — 1997 Durban.) On the bright side is Sacramento’s bid (which you can view here in PDF format). Sacto holds the promise of putting on a professional show. (Sacto also has this “athlete workbook” with more info.)

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My apologies if you can’t use the comment function. A few days ago, my Web host, Pair Networks of Pittsburgh, kept me from logging into this blog because some maniacal robot was posting hundreds of comments every hour to my blog — and was overwhelming Pair’s servers. Such Google-bombing spam machines — which use a constantly changing IP address — are hard to deter. So I had to set up a TypePad registration system. Still unsure how it’s used, but it will be fixed eventually. If you really need to comment on something, you can send it to me via email, and I’ll add the comment to the entry you specify. Hang in there.

M90 fitness guru Jack LaLanne says he has sex nearly every day — “nearly on Monday, nearly on Tuesday, nearly on Wednesday.” Jack is jesting, of course. And yet it’s the conventional wisdom on elder-whoopie — that it’s elder-rarely. But hide this blog from your grandkids. It talks about the Associated Press story in your paper today, the one about Granny getting it on. The serious finding of the story (which summarizes this new study in the New England Journal of Medicine) is that folks who stay in shape stay happy in bed. So now you have even more reason to do those intervals and hit those weights. Better sex! (But y’all knew that all along, right?)

Capitalizing on his presence at many IAAF and WMA functions over the years, Rex Harvey of Ohio was elected today to the IAAF Masters Committee. The vote took place among IAAF delegates attending the world championships starting this weekend in Osaka, Japan. Rex has long coveted this honor. I don’t know a lot about what the IAAF Masters Committee does, but it meant a lot to him to gain a seat at the table. At the least, he can defend American masters interests at the highest level of track-and-field. Rex remains a vice president of World Masters Athletics. He can handle the extra chores, since he used to be great decathlete. Good for you, Rex.

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Geezerjock’s August issue. The September issue will sell for $4.95 at selected newsstands.

Geezerjock magazine, previously available only by mail, hits the newsstands for the first time with the September issue. (Check out my article on Orono nationals, with my wife’s photos.) But when the glossy masters book begins appearing at Borders and Waldenbooks in the next few weeks, the big news is between the lines: It has a new owner. As of Aug. 1, Orlando-based Turnstile Publishing Co. has been in charge. But not to worry. The three-man band in Chicago that launched this Sports Illustrated for age-groupers is still in place and thrilled to have new marketing muscle help the mag from the City of Broad Shoulders. Editor Sean Callahan, who knows masters track, shared the news in a phone chat tonight.

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Track is an individual sport, but many folks compete for teams and care about winning club titles. At Orono nationals, more than 140 teams scored points. The winner in the combined men’s and women’s team competition was the Florida Athletic Club, which was runner-up at Charlotte last year to Brooks Fleet Feet Racing, based in Sacramento. But Brooks is no more (as far as masters track). Men’s and women’s team scoring also is missing. Don’t know why. USATF also has posted a single file of complete Orono results. Another file gives complete results with club affiliations. USATF masters media czar Bob Weiner has assembled this wide assortment of stories on the meet. We got some nice ink.

Last Saturday, masters track pioneer David Pain basked in the praise and playful ribbing of 100 friends and family members. Although he turned 85 on July 31, the party was over the weekend to accommodate summer schedules. I was there, too, snapping these pictures and taking video. Linda Pain, David’s wife, even invited me to speak for a couple minutes. (I told about how the USATF Masters Awards Committee had name the distinguished service award after him.) My wife took this shot of me. Other masters notables at the event included sprint god Payton Jordan (who is 90 and recovering from facial cancer surgery), masters records maven Pete Mundle (with his wife of five years, Joyce) and Al Sheahen, the former NMN editor and publisher.

Jimson Lee, a mid-40s Vancouver sprinter and track blogger, learned of Ross Dunton’s Web site plight and offered to help. Ross accepted Jimson’s generous invitation to host — for free — Ross’ training and technique site. Jimson writes: “I organized the front page to list ALL the articles, added a few more, then added the Search functionality to all the pages. I started adding ‘related posts’ at the bottom of each page, so the user can find similar pages.”

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