1. Tyson Gay will be fine by the time the 100 meters rolls around.

2. Great to see people diving for the line. They’re hungry. Took me back to watching my son’s cross country races, when those guys would dive to finish 44th rather than 45th if it kept an opponent from scoring.

3. Bernard Lagat made it look easy in the 1,500 and 5,000. In the short term, he give the U.S. a chance to medal in events that have eluded them in recent Olympics. In the long term, he’ll raise the bar for American athletes and make the rest of them better in the process.

4. Feel sorry for Alan Webb. His results as a youngster gave hope for fans of middle distance running in the U.S. They heaped a lot of expectations on him, and they get really sour at him when he disappoints. Sort of like Alex Rodriguez with the Yankees, Webb has become a lightning rod for negativity among running fans. Get off his back and let him run. He ain’t  Prefontaine.

5. And neither is Galen Rupp, so don’t jump on his bandwagon, either.

6. Don’t read too much into Jeremy Wariner’s second-place finish to LaShawn Merritt in the 400. Just enjoy the fact that both will be, in the words of our cycling friends, “super-motivated” in Beijing and make the 400 final one of the glamour events of the Olympics.

7. After all the years of developments in show and singlet and fabric technology, runners still rely on safety pins to attach their names and numbers. SAFETY PINS!

8. Maybe it’s just because I’m closing on the half-century mark and no longer have the muscle and skin tone to pull it off, but I sense sexism in the clothing manufacturers. They send women out in those cropped tops brief shorts. Men seem to prefer compression shorts and tanks tops. So do I. Bugs me that most of the women athletes are more scantily attired than their male counterparts.

9. On to Beijing.