It's August, and athletes, meet organizers and fans alike are complaining. Open season on rabbits has begun!

Don't get me wrong ... they all still like the concept of rabbits. They just want the rabbits to do a better job.

A rabbit, in track and field terms, is a runner hired to lead a race for some portion of the distance to make sure that it is conducted at a predetermined pace. Usually, on the Grand Prix circuit, this translates into world record attempts.

Unlike rabbits of the leporine sort (the furry ones), track rabbits are only human, and they err like the rest of us. Sometimes they go too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes they're a tad bit inconsistent. The fans get upset, because they wanted to see a record. The organizers get upset, because they paid for something they didn't get, and they don't like seeing the fans upset. Finally, the athletes get upset, because their market value depends on how fast they run.

Last week at Zurich's Weltklasse meet, the headlines trumpeted Moroccan Brahim Boulami, who broke his own world record in the steeplechase. He took the mark from 7:55.28 to 7:53.17. Anyway you slice it, that's amazing running. That's for 3000 meters, and moving seven-and-a-half laps around a track in under eight minutes is a stunning thing. Boulami produced the equivalent of an 8:30 two-mile. Then consider the fact that he had to leap over 28 honking big hurdles as well as seven water jumps.

Wow. I'd celebrate. But Boulami was not entirely pleased: "I came here to break the record. But for a good part of the race, I ran alone. I followed the first pacemaker, but I saw he was a bit slow. Then I got behind the second pacemaker and he was a bit tired.

"If I can find a pacemaker who can run 2,000 meters in 5:17, I think I can go faster."

Dang rabbits.

And then a few nights later in Linz, Austria, meet organizers promoted their event by trumpeting the possibility of a world record in the women's 1000 meters. It seemed realistic, with Maria Mutola and Jolanda Ceplak in the field. The rabbit, a notable runner herself, seemed to have gotten the instructions right. She went out at 2:28 pace (the record is 2:28.98).

The only trouble was, no one followed. Mutola and Ceplak dawdled, and ended up kicking in to a time nearly 10 seconds slower than the record. Many in the crowd felt disappointed, and the journalists who made it a point to be there for the record made it a point to complain about the lack of a record. Wrote one South African, "It became clear to everyone that an excellent world record opportunity had been missed. Mutola ultimately won in a shade over 2:37 (2:38.08) but that was not the point of the whole exercise and the packed crowd could rightly claim to have been short-changed. When a publicised [sic] world record bid is messed up as badly as this one was, the organisers [sic] would have been quite within their rights to 'dock', not the rabbit's bonus, but the hefty appearance fees paid to the so-called stars of the track. "

What exactly is the "point of the whole exercise" if not to race? Personally, I've always liked a close race, no matter what the speed. Races are visually appealing. Records, especially when there is little suspense about the winner, are visually boring.

Maybe this is just me? I am increasingly beginning to suspect that the rest of the track world would prefer to see just records, all the time. Faster is better, and all that. I've even known knowledgeable track fans who go to the Olympics and complain that "with all these great runners on the track at the same time, it's a shame we can't have a world record."

So since the rest of the world just wants fast races, and doesn't mind rabbits, I will forgo my annual rant against hired pacemakers and try to be truly constructive. I am caving on the rabbit debate in the interests of increasing harmony and happiness.

How can we please everyone? How can we make rabbits more reliable and consistent? That's a no-brainer. The dog racing world uses mechanical rabbits, and so can we. What's the big deal? The IAAF used to have a rule against rabbits, but those days are gone. We will please more fans, and that's what it's all about.

In the same vein, we need to be able to produce more records, so that every meet can have one. To that end, perhaps the rabbits can be electronically programmed so that they're not too successful. That is, we don't want to get into the habit of breaking records by margins that are too big. Boulami, for instance, broke the steeple record by 2.11 seconds. Now let's say that instead he broke it by a hundredth of a second 211 different times. We would have a manifold increase in the number of fans who witnessed records. We would have a huge increase in media coverage, and everyone would be happier, except for the now unemployed human rabbits.

The pole vaulters and high jumpers long ago acknowledged this as a legitimate strategy: "slicing the salami thin." The smaller your record margins, the more records you can produce, the more record bonuses you earn, and so forth. It's a thing of genius that runners have never been able to take advantage of, because it is so hard to micro-gauge their pace in that fashion. However, the advent of mechanical rabbits in track and field would change all that.

We would have records galore. We wouldn't have to bother win the stress of pure competition. The world would be a happier place. And someday, everyone will thank me.

In the news
Almost lost in the hubbub of the last few weeks of track were the North American, Central American and Caribbean Under-25 Track Championships, in San Antonio, Texas. On paper this should be a heck of a meet, with the best young athletes from the Western Hemisphere duking it out for half-global bragging rights.

However, the better part of a meet is often its tradition, and the San Antonio meet sadly lacked in that department. The U.S. crushed the opposition, with 30 golds and 67 overall medals. Canada ran second with four golds and 20 medals. The South of the Border contingents were far weaker than they might have been; that's seen in the medal count, which is doubly distressing considering that despite some bright spots, the U.S. didn't send anything resembling its very best athletes in this age group. We still mopped up, and we shouldn't have.

Consider the fact that Michigan alum Mike Wisniewski captured the gold medal in the half-marathon, after running the 13.1 miles alone. No one else entered the race. Ouch.

Bergqvist flying
SMU alum Kajsa Bergqvist appears to be on her way to locking up the season's top ranking in the high jump. The Swedish star leaped 6-8.75 in Poznan, Poland, on Sunday, breaking her own national record. She also went for a world record 6-10.75, missing at that height. Still, her winning height is the best leap in the world in the past six years.

The same day in Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. and Great Britain dueled it out, with added competition coming from a Russian squad. Dwain Chambers won the 100 in 10.28 over Coby Miller and Jon Drummond. Darvis Patton won a big 200 in 20.16. Larry Wade triumphed in the hurdles over Colin Jackson, 13.24-13.32.

Joey Woody won the long hurdles in 49.14, easily handing James Carter (49.25), perhaps still whupped from his 47.57 breakthrough at Zurich. Gail Devers (12.79), Jearl Miles-Clark (51.65) and Chryste Gaines (11.12) were the only U.S. female winners. The final score: U.S. 144, Britain 117, Russia 116.

At Linz, Dwight Phillips won the long jump with a 27-6, and Adam Nelson the shot with 67-9.75.

Jeff Hollobaugh, former managing editor of Track and Field News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached by e-mail at michtrack@aol.com.