And talking of world champions....

Many of our best masters runners are currently in Riccione, Italy, for the world championships.

News so far... my erstwhile training partner Patty Murray finished a storming second in her heat of the 5000 metres. Looks like she's sucessfully recovered from injury, but may not have the legs to challenge the Belgian Corinne Debaets who is running in a different class, the only woman under 17 minutes. But Patty is second fastest of the lot so far by a comfortable margin, so fingers crossed there is a medal on...

AND she has qualified second-fastest in the 1500 for good measure. Go Patty!

Compared with two heats for the women's 5k, the men's 800 had SIX. And our resident 800-metre maestro Dave Albo missed out on qualifying for the final. He'll give us the full story when he gets back.

Meanwhile, congratulations to one of our local (to Your Running headquarters) heroes, Steve Gallegos, who won the 800 in 2:05.55 and is now world champion in the 50-54 age group.

* Riccione results are here.