"Thirty Crims" has a ring. Like "One Good Man," "$2 Million for Charities," "15,369 Participants" ...

All are multiples of things, complete in their own right, that fuse in Flint the fourth August Saturday to make street music. Every age, race, gender join in energy to launch fitness, hope and selves ... and return to friends, celebration and knowing that much more what it is to live.

Crim starts with a step taken - Who knows how many months, years or lifetimes ago? - toward happinesss, health, self-sufficiency; then a second ... you're off and running!

It isn't easy - you walk, plod, struggle while others seem to stream without effort. Don't be fooled; they've paid dues. Do more - you're in charge of this in your life - and see.

You sign up for Crim; what seemed forever away now faces you. Feeling fitter, you enter Flint's Character Inn, where the beehive of next- day competitors lifts and deflates you. Each seems supremely confident.

Don't be fooled; they are on on the lip of a journey too.

A backbone greets you inside the expo, courtesy Renaissance Chiropractic. Stroll through a maze of amazing people and products to pick up your chip and bib.

Perhaps you'll encounter Bill Rodgers or Greg Meyer in the elevator climbing while the Vehicle City dims, out the glass, in humidity mists below.

The Legends of Crim panel: Rodgers, Meyer, Herb Lindsay and Bobby Crim himself - limber as a pretzel at 74, revved to run 10 miles "as hard as I used to, just not as fast" - swap memories in a lobby surrounded by taxidermied beasts.

Depart and pasta-load. Rest and fidget. You're as ready as you can be for tomorrow's 10-mile test of will. Pre-race dreams.

Dawn. Fuel, stretch and covertly eye other bodies: some steely hard, others more assuring. Will pre-start ceremonies never end? BANG! The gun at last.

Ease into it. Let it out. Flow. Silky Kenyans charge, trailed by lean-jawed elites. Admire them, then - if you're not one of them - forget them. The only race you control is yours.

Crowds and street bands thin ... Bradley hills ... reach inside yourself ... silent stretches with rhythmic footfalls. They call Crim "the Coolest Race In Michigan," huh? Ha ha. Today's only 70 degrees - August mornings can get much hotter - but the dew point is like a steam blanket.

Dew point, due point, do ... they all point ahead.

Last turn down Saginaw Street to the best finish in all racing, where cheers crescendo and gravity sucks you across the line in spent, sweaty rapture.

Nonstop peeping as chips cross mats. Medals, draped over arms, clank as volunteers thrust them into hands. Hoses hiss in the spray-down zone as announcer Scott Hubbard booms names of thousands more streaming down the last battered bricks of Saginaw. On anon.

A costumed bee hugs Teddy Bear Trot tots near a tattoo parlor on a side street. Mountains of orange rinds and banana peels overflow trashcans like fruit volcanoes.

Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - back from when cars were king - carom oldies off building fronts: "Oh see, see-see rider ..." Your back hurts, your feet are blistered.

Join the human carnival milling under a vast striped tent. Tattooed beer men pour pitcher after pitcher. Pizza boxes stack high as the giant balloon arch in the plaza, topped by a silver "3-0," that bobs and sways in the wind. MR