Sprinters who recall the heyday of the 1950s are mourning the death of Dave Sime (pronounced sim). He held world records in the 100, 220 and low hurdles and won silver behind Armin Hary at the Rome Games. The New York Times does his legacy justice. It had an intriguing aside: “At 35, as a lark, he ran 100 yards in a Miami meet (he mistakenly thought it was a Masters track and field event for those over 30) in 9.6 seconds over a cement surface. He told The Times, ‘It was probably the first track meet I ever enjoyed.'” That seems odd, since in 1971, masters were men 40 and over. Dave doesn’t appear in mastershistory.org. Whatever. I’d love to hear your memories of Dave.

Four years ago, we were giddy to report how Jeff Laynes at 41 ran 6.38 in the open 55 meters at the Run for the Dream indoor meet in Fresno, which featured a slate of masters events. Now we’re grumpy. The meet may be dead, says the Fresno Bee. “The annual Run for the Dream indoor meet that has brought a handful of elite track and field athletes, numerous college programs and hundreds of youths and teens to town will not be held this year – if ever again,” the paper says. “Event organizers were unable to obtain desired dates in a timely fashion to hold the Run for the Dream at Save Mart Center this year. Then as organizers continued to search for feasible dates, Fresno State loaned out its indoor track for use as a warm-up track at the upcoming IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, Ore.”

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India’s outdoor masters nationals were held Jan. 5-9 in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh state, according to the Free Press Journal. We learn: “In the competition in which each and every state took part, Manipur was the leading winner who won 76 gold medals, 45 silver medals and 53 bronze medals and overall 156 medals.” But no actual event results. So I strolled over to the MAFI website. No marks are listed for the weekend meet. But behold! Results from 2015 nationals are posted. This was the topic of an earlier rant. So I gazed upon the results, and what do I find? Nonsense. Lots of hand-times and a seemingly random listing of names. Also craziness. “Rajesh Kumar M 35+ 110m Hurdles 0.838194444,” for example. And “Gamit Hemant K M 45+ 4 X 100m Relay 54:03:00.” And “Anil Kumar M 35+ 200m 1.019444444.” Maybe I don’t want this year’s results after all.

Flo Meiler says she has a sore throat but no aches and pains after competing last weekend at the indoor Dartmouth Relays. (See masters results here.) Heck, I’d have a sore throat from celebrating two world or Americans records. At 81, she threw the shot and weight throw Saturday and did the vault, long jump, high jump and 200 Sunday. Flo’s 1.75 in the vault (5-8¾) crushes the listed WR of 1.43 (4-8 1/4) by Germany’s Christel Happ. And Flo long-jumped 2.81 (9-2 3/4) to beat the listed AR of 2.72 (8-11¼) by Irene Obera. I wrote Flo for comment, and she graciously replied: “I still train 5 days a week. You have to when you turn 81. The Good Lord has blessed me with a healthy body. I take an Herbalife Nutritional Shake every morning and several vitamins each day. Works for me.” Also notable at Dartmouth was the comeback of Carl Wallin, who founded the New Hampshire indoor meet with Ken Weinbel. He reportedly has suffered from cancer.

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The 2016 Millrose Games will, again, feature masters relays, the schedule shows. The Feb. 20 event at the New York Armory will showcase a series of 4-by-400s, including ones for men over 40, 50 and 60 and one for all women. Normally, I get a heads up on how to enter. This year, nothing. But Millrose lists Devon Martin as the contact for “Clubs & Masters Events.” (Write her here.) Devon coaches the Central Park Track Club and is credited with having helped set W35 records in the indoor 4-by-800. Last year, Bernard Lagat was the headliner for his sub-3:55 mile at age 40. Wonder who will be the geezer star this year? If anyone has details on masters relays, please share here. But I’ll write Devon as well.

Masters sprinter Jimson Lee has a blog that never ceases to amaze. This week he documented six bizarre track events. My favorite is “parallel high jumping,” our version of synchro diving. But it’s nice that track’s synchro is objective — based on height cleared rather than subjective style points. In any case, consider this video uploaded in 2009. How cool is this? (But the pool of geezers willing to do this seems kind of small.)

Fat chance you’ll ever get to dine with dozens of Super Bowl champions or Baseball Hall of Famers. But for $45 on Saturday, Feb. 13, you can join Olympic gold medalists, WR setters and legendary coaches at the annual track star luncheon in Seal Beach, California. Over the years, the event was a staple of USC, UCLA and other famous SoCal track celebrities. Louie Zamperini used to attend. I showed up last year and wrote a story about it, featuring Billy Mills as just one of the (famous) guys. One of the organizers, Doug Smith the masters sprinter from Occidental College and Southern California Striders, shares info how you can attend. (You don’t have to be famous, though.) A thrill for me in 2015 was sitting at the Kansas table with Billy, miler Bill Dotson and long jumper Ernie Shelby. Also UCLA coach Jim Bush. Here’s a gallery of attendees.

Andy Hecker, the maverick meet director of Southern California, gets his colleagues’ knickers in a bunch by allowing day-of-meet registration. He also proves meets can be run under any conditions — rain or shine. Now he reminds me that you can even make a request for your own event. Really. He writes: “Bring two competitors for the race of your choice and we’ll do it. If it is a weird distance, please let me know in advance what you want. I’ll guarantee you, aside from a surveying company, there is nobody better at calculating odd distances on a track than I am. Staggered 180-yard hurdles around a turn — need I say more?” Only one meet does this, however — Andy’s annual Southern California Indoor Meet — Outdoors, which is Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. Many events are indoor length to give folks a chance to prep for indoor nationals. Andy also notes the possible presence of a W40 sprint relay team that may be shooting for a record. The listed W40 American 4-by-100 record is 49.48, but the club record is 52.95. So get some friends together so they can have teams to run against.

The Perth2016 website is taking registration for the WMA world meet in late October. Remarkable is the posting of men’s and women’s “final daily schedules.” We don’t even see that for Albuquerque indoor nationals in March. After y’all noted the absence of some events, a provisional schedule was taken down and replaced with the note: “The schedule of events is currently down for revision and will be posted as soon as possible.” That was Monday. But some Down Under are worried about “being sanctioned” for competing in a masters games Nov. 10-12 that follow Perth. In the September-October newsletter of Queensland Masters Athletics, editor Viddy Jermacans writes: “WMA can confidently state that the IAAF will support our decision, and if necessary issue a sanction against any athletics organisation being involved in this [masters games] event in 2016.” The November-December newsletter noted the restitution of track and field to the masters games program. Bummer. Stay tuned as we sort this out.

M55 Arnie Pollinger of Holliston, Massachusetts, is a rare bird — he runs roads and sprints. Recently, he wrote me: “I realize my running and jumping might not be noteworthy except for the fact that I am doing all this with an artificial hip.” His surgery was in April 2012, and he’s run dozens of distance races since this list began in 1997. He’s also prolific in the 60, 100 and 200 — and long jump. New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery posted a great profile of his case. “My hope is that other masters runners with degenerative hip arthritis who have been told they will never run again will read my story and realize there is a viable alternative out there,” he says. So I dug for more info, and he graciously responded.

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