Lolitia “Lish” Bache, treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial USATF Association, informs me: “Jay Beltz was unanimously elected president (of the association). You might remember that he was the Nominating Committee choice, who ran against Mike Rouse last year.” Jay takes over until September for Mike, who resigned recently, saying his new job required travel and he couldn’t do justice to the USATF presidency in San Diego. The SDUSATF board chose Jay at a meeting Tuesday night. Best of luck to Jay.

Coach Rolland Ranson of the University of Maine, meet director of his third masters nationals, graciously writes to straighten out confusion over the entry deadline for his Aug. 2-5 meet. Rolland writes that the deadline for entries is July 20, adding: “They changed it (from July 13) on the Web site a week or more ago, Of course, paper entry forms that are out there still have the old date, as does the ad in (National Masters News).” Rolland said that when the discrepancy between online and paper deadlines was pointed out to him, he and USATF official Jim Flanik decided to make July 20 the deadline “to be fair to everyone and also to give more time for all of us. . . . Easier that way, less confusion and with computers it is easy to do!”

The schedule of the 17th World Masters Athletic Championships is not set in stone. But it’s like mystery meat. You don’t wanna know what goes into it. OK, maybe you’re a bit curious. With nearly 9,000 athletes entered at Riccione — the biggest track meet in WMA history — the Italian organizers have a heckuva challenge squeezing hundreds of races and field events through three stadiums in 10 competition days over a 12-day period. Some have heard that the running event finals for the two sexes would be held in different stadiums. Others fear having to make a mad dash between stadiums to do their events. But if you thought those are worst cases, think again.

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M50 runner Robert Herd of Australia has quite a sense of adventure. In mid-May he joined a Hong Kong contingent and traveled thousands of miles to Hangzhou — to compete in the All-China National Veterans Athletics Championships — their masters nationals. After his return home, he posted this amazing yarn of his experience in China. Among his revelations: “In the 1500, where you run mainly in lanes 1 and 2, people stood on the inside of the track and in lane 3 and outwards all around the track and cheered and clapped and took photographs.”

Producer Julia Dudley Najieb is a former high school and collegiate track star herself.

Masters track is about dreams. And now a 35-year-old Fresno high school teacher and movie maker is dreaming REALLY big. Her name is Julia Dudley Najieb, and Monday she wrote about her plans to produce a “track & field reality game show.” She envisions a series in which folks ages 32 to 52 train and compete to recapture the glory of their high school track days. And win money! Julia writes that, pending OK of the show’s buyer, 32 first-place winners would win $10,000 in prizes and gift certificates. (I need to check to see if that’s $10,000 each.) The same number of runner-ups would win $5,000, and 32 third-place winners would earn $2,500. And the high schools from whence the athletes came also get donations.

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Coach Ross Dunton of Tennessee, whose masters newsletters and Web site articles have been quoted and reposted around the world, plans to take down his Web site as he focuses on his battle against Alzheimer’s disease. “I will not be staging/hosting any track meets and will no longer need to have a Web site, so I have told my Web hosting company that I no longer need it,” he writes in his latest newsletter. “I do not know (if) it will disappear or just float around in space.” But he shares this hopeful news: “I will continue publishing the newsletters and providing coaching information.” Ross’ Web host appears to be Interland, according to this info.

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Nolan Shaheed reports that he ran the 1500 in 4:19.37 at Sunday’s Trojan Masters meet at USC. He adds: “The (first) spits were 68, 70, 69. . . . It was a very warm day but little or no wind, so that was good. There were three young runners in the race and (I) tucked in behind them until the last lap and caught two of them but ran out of track for the last one and finished second overall. It was fun. My plantar fasciitis flared up in the 800 and I had to drop out so I’m glad I had one good race.” The listed M55 AR is Nolan’s 4:20.76 set three years ago when he was 55! According to the Age-Graded Tables, Nolan’s latest record corresponds to an Open (ages 20-30) equivalent of 3:26.95. Incredible.

Just in case you haven’t checked the calendar, the drop-dead deadline for USATF West Regional Masters at Occidental College is July 16. (Gotta pay a $20 late fee.) The meet is July 21-22. The Orono masters nationals in early August have a July 13 deadline. After July 13 — and up to July 20 — you pay $50 extra to compete at USATF masters nationals. Entering online works fine — if you can find your USATF number. In any case, the Status of Entry pages for Orono and for Occidental show lots of small fields. Go get a medal or three.

The folks in Riccione, Italy, have posted the men’s entry list and the women’s entry list — 63 pages and 28 pages, respectively — for the WMA world masters championships this fall. Easier to navigate than the advanced search entry tool, which remains online as well. The PDF files are big, but worth the effort to download. They also are searchable, meaning you can do CTRL-F (on PC) or apple-F (on a Mac) to create a search window. Just type in a keyword and go find your event or name.

Results haven’t been posted, but USATF reports that Nadine O’Connor broke Irene Obera’s W65 world record in the 200 meters Sunday at the Trojan Masters Meet at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Catching a legal wind at last, Nadine ran the deuce in 29.37 to lower Irene’s 1999 WR of 30.46 by more than a second! I’ve also learned that Nolan Shaheed lowered his own M55 American record for 1500 meters but am awaiting confirmation of the exact time. The listed WR is 4:12.5. But I’m told that Nolan wasn’t able to track down signatures for his record paperwork, so the mark may be moot. Hope Nadine had better luck.