From Mackinac Island in the east to Ironwood in the west, from Eagle Harbor at the farthest northern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula jutting well into mighty Lake Superior to Menominee down south on Lake Michigan across from the Wisconsin state line, from the smoked-fish joints along the highways and shorelines to the pasties filled with potatoes and carrots and meat that have fed generations of Finns, I love the Upper Peninsula. I love the thimbleberries baking in the sun after a long run - how can you not love a berry bush without thorns that you can wade into with your running shorts and not worry about scratches as you eat to your blood-sugar-depleted content? I love the mountainous whitefish dinners. I love the cheap motels. I love the inland lakes - Lake Gogebic warms up so nicely even a troll (i.e. someone from the Lower Peninsula, as in beneath the bridge) can bathe in it, and Lake Michigamme is as pretty a lake as you'll find anywhere on earth. I love the ridiculously-tough trails of the Porcupine Mountains in the far northwest. I love the view atop the old ruined fort way above the tourists and horses of Mackinac. I love the Northern Lights so surreal you wonder if someone didn't slip something into your food at dinner. I love sitting in the sand at the Shoreline Inn in Eagle Harbor, a far cooler, prettier, quainter place than the more-renowned Copper Harbor a few miles east. It looks like some New England-ish fishing village, though many of the homes are owned, now, by Chicago millionaires. And if the wind shifts to onshore, the temperature can drop from 90 to 55 in half an hour. I love the breathtaking views of the trail run along the top of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. I love sitting in a folding chair atop Brockway Mountain near Copper Harbor, drinking a bottle of wine with my wife and hoping it lasts till the sun sets into Superior at 10:15. I love the Fourth of July, with the free Popeye Run 5K and 10K, with their downhill courses that finish in Eagle Harbor, and the surprisingly-grand fireworks that night in Copper Harbor. (The best viewing spot? Get there early and park in the first turnoff on the drive out of town up Brockway Mountain, then spread a blanket on the hillside.) I love the long first-mile uphill of the Lilac Festival 10K on Mackinac and the switchback, loose-sand, bust-your-guts ascent up Stink Hill late in the Pictured Rocks Trail Run in Munising in June; the madness of the two-day, three-race Keweenaw Trail Festival, the flat-and-fastness of the Billy Mills 5K in Sault Ste. Marie and the short-but-sweet 2.8-mile Sunday Lake runs in July; and the holy-cow gorgeous Run Around Mackinac in September. I love that it's nearly as far from Detroit to the top of the Keweenaw, 600 miles, as it is to Atlanta, Georgia. I love the ghost and near-ghost towns from When Copper Was King, the weathered wood houses, some abandoned, some bought for a song and a few bucks, that dot the back roads and have stood up to one mighty winter after another for 100 years. I love the running track at Munising High, with its views of Superior, and the cracked, weeds-popping-through track in Ishpeming. I love the three-mile loop and not-so-wild deer herds of Presque Isle in Marquette. I love the old movie theaters in downtown Houghton and Hancock, which still pop their own popcorn and show first-run movies despite a nearby cineplex. Tahquamenon Falls are splendid, but I love the more-remote, less-visited falls that dot Alger County, and the memory of the bobcat who sat in the sun one day near a waterfall outside Munising and stared as calmly at me as one of my housecats. I love Grand Marais and its off-the-beaten-trackness, and the hiking and running trails nearby, and the white-birch forest you drive through from there if you take the back road, H58, to Munising. I DON'T love black flies. Nothing is worse, when the wind has stopped on a hot June day, but, if there's only one thing you don't love about a place, well ...

Enough gushing. Some advice. Join the Upper Peninsula Road Running Club. About 600 strong, the club has races nearly every weekend day of spring, summer and fall, and its newsletter, alone, is worth the price of admission. Trolls are invited, and membership gets you $2 off race entries. There are big and famous races, such as Pictured Rocks and the runs of Mackinac. There are tiny 5Ks on Indian reservations. The newsletter is packed with race flyers and the sight of so many race entries coming regularly in the mail will surely incite you to plan more U.P. trips. For club information, send an e-mail to runeditor@aol.com. Contact Jeff Crumbaugh at runskikayak@hotmail.com to get information on the Keweenaw Trail Festival, held this year on July 13-14, one of the more-unique events in state racing. The festival includes a 10K Saturday morning, a 3.8-mile hill climb Saturday night from the beach at Eagle Harbor to the top of Mt. Lookout, the highest point in the Keweenaw, and a 25K thigh-busting run up, down and through the gorge that divides the Keweenaw in half on Sunday. John and Donna Swanson of Northville ran it last year and had a blast. Jeff bills the 10K as flat and fast, but the word of anyone who calls himself "runskikayak" ought to be taken with a grain or two of salt. The 3.8-miler is tricky, too, not just for its 800-foot vertical climb, but for the fact that once you get to the top, nothing's really over BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT TO COME BACK DOWN. Bear scat on the trail can provide one of the more-distinct mementos in state racing. The evening race is followed by a dip in Superior for the truly crazed, lasagna at the Shoreline Motel and a beer or two on the beach. Sunset is at 10:15 and the Northern Lights pop out about midnight. Amby Burfoot, the former Boston Marathon champ who now edits Runner's World magazine, confirms he is sending a reporter to the Keweenaw this summer to write an article on the festival for a future issue of the magazine. Other top races? * Pictured Rocks 11-miler and 5-miler in Munising on June 30. Call (906) 387-1751 or email lchamber@up.net. * The Run Your Bass Off 10K and 5K in Crystal Falls on July 6. The 5K is really more like 6.5, and the 10K includes two trips up the little mountain the city sits atop, so say goodbye to fast times. * The Billy Mills 5K in the Sault gives you a chance to meet the great Olympian and to hear a tape of the call of his huge upset for the 10,000-meter win in Tokyo in 1960. Call (906) 635-6508 or e-mail jdumback@saultribe.net. * The Great Monarch Chase, a 10K run and 2.5-mile walk on Oct. 6 at Stonington Lighthouse, not far from Escanaba on Lake Michigan, where the monarchs gather to begin their annual migration to Mexico. Call (906) 474-9048.

Some suggestions on places to stay? Superior Shores on the big lake, a few miles west of Ontonagon; Scottie's in Munising; the Philomena on Lake Michigamme; the Shoreline or Eagle Harbor Inn in Eagle Harbor; anyplace in Grand Marais; anyplace