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Records... rainstorms... and running up mountains...

IN what's turned into a glorious month for international athletics, it's the little guys who pass unnoticed.

And yet, there are achievements in there, hidden among the doings of the more high profile stars, that merit mention.

Case in point, Japheth Kimutai. The emerging Kenyan runner won the 800m in Stuttgart, Germany, on July 14, in 1:42.76 -- the fastest time in the world this year, and in the top ten best timings of all time.

Fair enough, but why he -- yet another in the seemingly endless line of middle and long distance runners emerging out of the Kenyan assembly line -- merits mention here is that in the process of notching the fastest time of the year, Kimutai also established a world record: the fastest time ever recorded by a teenager.

Kimutai tuns 20 on December 20.

THANKS to Jackie Joyner-Kersee authoring a fairy tale even a Ripley would have found hard to swallow, with the come-from-behind gold in the heptathlon at the Goodwill Games in Uniondale, NY, a fantastic performance failed to get the attention it deserved.

Reference, here, being to the 4 x 400-metres men's world record set up by the US quartet at the same venue.

What is astonishing about the run is that it underlines the sheer US dominance in the event -- a hegemony stretching back almost 90 years, which must surely make it the longest domination of any event by any nation.

The event, earlier, used to be run over the longer 1,760m distance (4 x 440), before the IAAF brought it down to 1600m. And since then, it has been the Americans, almost throughout.

The US relay teams, incredibly, hold the top seven times in history in the event, and 12 out of the top sixteen. The 2:56.16 time established by the US Olympic team of 1968, which today ranks as the fifth fastest time of all time, created a record that stood for 23 years, 9 months, 19 days -- the longest lasting record for a championship event on track.

In fact, it took a US team to finally equal that mark -- at Seoul in October 1988 -- before another US quartet shattered the barrier, running the distance in 2:55.74 in Barcelona, in August 1992.

Among the also rans, Great Britain figures twice in the top ten timings list (8th fastest timing in history, Atlanta, August 1996 and 9th fastest, Athens, August 1997) and Jamaica once (10th fastest in history, Athens, August 1997.

AS if the regular marathons weren't gruelling enough, someone goes and invents something that, to a weekend runner like me, sounds, sadistic to the max.

So more over marathon, make way for Skyrunning.

Not a new thing, actually -- in fact, the race is old enough to have its own world championships, the latest edition having been held earlier this month at the foot of the Matterhorn, in Italy.

The series of races -- a full marathon, a vertical kilometre run, a duathlon comprising one mountain bike climb and one vertical km run -- is gruelling enough to challenge the world's best, without the added disadvantage that underfoot conditions in the famed mountain basin comprise glacial snow and granite shale.

Participating athletes, 120 of them, came from Peru, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Mexico, America, Britain, France, Holland, and Italy, in a championship that is invitational in nature.

Perhaps the most spectacular of the events is the vertical km -- a run straight up a pre-designated course along the mountain side, covering a distance of approximately 2.5 miles, at a killing altitude of over 1,000 feet.

'Course' is a bit of a misnomer, actually, implying a structured stretch for the runners to compete over. What they actually get are markers denoting the start and finish. In between, what they get is mountain streams, grass, loose shale, and a snow field.

World champion Marco de Gasperi of Italy took the event, setting a record of 38:55. America's Kari DiStefani won the women's race over the distance, in 53:12.

You want to get an idea what it's like? Try raising a treadmill to an angle of about 35 degrees... embed uneven shale and gravel on it, and then try running...

On second thoughts, don't -- skyrunning ain't to fool with.

MONSOONS have set in pretty much all over the place, and for the occasional runner like me, it brings with it one big problem. Namely, how the heck do you take a mac on a run?

The alternative, getting caught in a thunderstorm with the accompanying risk of a lightning hit when you are all nice and wet and a perfect conductor, is something my insurance agent tends to frown upon.

Trick then is to get out of storm's way -- and to do that, you have to be able to judge when it's going to break overhead.

For the how to of it, I am indebted to Running & FitNews, the official journal of the American Running and Fitness Association.

The trick apparently is simple. Look out for clouds forming overhead. To calculate how far the building storm is, count the seconds between seeing a flash of lightning and hearing the thunder.

Every five seconds equals a mile.