Was there ever a shorter summer than the summer of 2003? A late frost at the end of a lousy spring killed all the buds on the trees and most of the grapes on the vines up north, which means that when I was up in Traverse City over Memorial Day, the woods were nearly as bare of vegetation as in the middle of winter. When good weather doesn't hit until June ...

Well, at least summer ended well, with the third annual Harvest Stompede races in the Leelanau Peninsula, one of the prettiest places on earth. There's an account of that race elsewhere in this issue, but it's worth noting both there and here that if you haven't run that race -- either the 5K or 7-miler -- you need to. And you need to register early enough to sign up for the weekend's wine tasting, a sold-out event that includes special tastings and an appropriate snack at most vineyards on the peninsula.

Bookmark www.lpwines.com, then go to the site early next year and keep checking until registration opens for both the runs and the sipping.

Odds and ends:

* Ooh, there was complaining on the September runner's e-mail list about the last of the Standard Federal Bank 10K series in Auburn Hills. Seems as if some Romanian interloper named Denisa Costescu with connections collected first-place prize money that was only supposed to be for state residents.

The writer of the mass e-mail said that because this foreigner had just joined the Hanson brothers' elite women's racing team and had just moved into their new house in Rochester and had just gone to work for them in one of the their running stores, the brothers -- who helped Carey Pinkowski of the Chicago Marathon put on and promote the Auburn Hills race -- were able to break the rules and get her a payday.

There are a few things wrong with the scenario. One, Costescu is not on the Hansons' women's team -- it's for American citizens only. Two, she doesn't live in the house in Rochester. Three, she doesn't work for the Hansons. Four, they only met her the day of the race and the only connection she has with them or their racing teams is she asked if she could join some of the Hansons' runners for a post-race cool-down and maybe do future workouts with them.

Pinkowski said Standard Federal paid Costescu because she and her husband are Michigan residents, work in Michigan, live in Novi and have applied for green cards. He said to mollify local runners, he will pay Costescu first-place money, but will also pay runnerup Seana Larson of Dexter first-place money, and will move the other women getting paychecks up one notch, to keep everyone happy.

A belated congratulations to Keith and Kevin Hanson for securing the Brooks contract that allowed them to add a women's program, and good luck to them in putting a team together. "They're doing something that's revolutionary for developing Olympic athletes," said Pinkowski. "They're just great guys."

Indeed.

One final thought. Some thought the Standard Federal Series should use the same standards as Crim: that you have to be a resident for a year to qualify for resident-only prize money. You only have to go back to 2002 to find an example of that rule being unfair. Tere Stouffer-Drenth of Charlevoix stunned the Michigan women by placing 12th overall that year but was disqualified from Michigan money because she had only been living in the state since the spring.

Her husband had taken a teaching job in Petoskey. They were living on family land that had been divided among the Drenth kids. They were building a big, expensive house. And she was a Michigan native and many-time state champion in high school. Were they living in Michigan? Absolutely. She wasn't an interloper. She wasn't trying to slip through the cracks. But she got caught in the rules.

"We try to reward performance," says Pinkowski. If Costescu could convince the state of Michigan she was a resident, that was good enough for him.

* Let's see. Kelli White wins the 100 and the 200 at the World Track and Field Championships in Paris in August but is threatened with disqualification because she tests positive for drugs, right? Yep, that's what they said. International Association of Athletics officials said she tested positive for modafinil, which she and her doctor claimed was prescribed to fight narcolepsy, an inherited sleeping disorder.

Where it gets really interesting is the modafinil was not on the list of prohibited substances agents and athletes are warned about. So she was guilty of taking something that wasn't against the rules. And threatened with disqualification and suspension for doing so.

There's a term for that: ex post facto. In America, at least, it's illegal to charge people with crimes that weren't crimes when they committed them.

* The same powers that be, the IAAF, were rightly ticked off at Jon Drummond for his tantrum at getting disqualified from a qualifying heat of the 100. He was rightly ticked off for being a victim of technology. To prevent rolling starts, pressure plates can tell when a runner begins moving too soon to the sound of the gun, faster than human reaction time allows.

Drummond shifted his foot while in the starting blocks. When the gun went, he was third or fourth out of the blocks: mediocre start. But the computer said he'd left way early. Replays showed him getting left in the dust by the first couple of runners. Since someone had already false-started in his heat, he was disqualified. Disqualified for getting an early start on a heat he got a late start on.

The IAAF needs a human meet director capable of overruling technology when events warrant. They warranted, then. But Drummond went nuts, ran around, cried, threw himself to the ground and so forth. The heat couldn't be held for 45 minutes.

The IAAF ordered USA Track & Field officials to hold a hearing on the matter and then to punish Drummond, both within 24 hours. Why have a hearing if you've already mandated the punishment? "Jon, could you please come to a hearing at 9, and, oh, by the way, we'll be punishing you at 3." Why not just do him like they do witches? Tie him up, throw him in the water and see if he drowns.

* Congratulations to Pat Ball and Doug Kurtis for continuing to improve, year by year, the Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Bank International Marathon.

As this column went to bed the event more than a week away, but pre-registrations were way up. They'd more than doubled two- and five-person relay teams to more than 300 each, boosted marathon sign-ups by several hundred to nearly 3,000, and were looking at higher 5K figures too.

All that and mariachis in Mexicantown, bag pipes in Corktown, belly dancers in Greektown, block parties in Indian Village and Anita Baker singing the National Anthem.

A good start for fall. Maybe it'll make up for summer. MR