SOUTH HAVEN (8/14/04) - How tasty for racers to sample Blueberry Jam on a cool morning during the dog days of summer.

How delicious to take the gooey confection with a cup of Lake Michigan waters, if only as scenery, while elbow to elbow, if only at the starting line, with striding stars packing canid speed.

When I slipped into the second row of runners to await the starting horn at the Blueberry Jam 5K, sponsored by the local hospital in conjunction with the National Blueberry Festival in this maritime resort, I found myself standing beside a tall young woman. I recognized almost no one in the press of bodies. A few runners looked out of place in the front rows.

Sizing up the young woman, noting her calm, self-possessed carriage, deciding to trust her instincts in lining up in the second row, I considered treating her as someone to key off in the race. She dropped out of sight behind me in the stampede from the horn. I'd not reached the first turn, a block down the street, when a girlish voice apologized at my left ear.

"Coming through."

The young woman jostled my elbow as she squeezed between an over-frisky pup and me. She loped off along the street like Atalanta, the racing maiden in Greek mythology, leaving behind all others of her gender and vanishing out of the hunting grounds of mere mortals such as me.

After the race, she stood talking to a woman nearer my age at the edge of the press of runners and spectators near the finish line at the harbor. Quoting her approximate running time, about a minute faster than mine, she said in a ho-hum way, as if it went without saying, that she'd won the women's overall.

She was Jessie Stewart, 19, of Kalamazoo, consumer of the Jam in 18:25.

I never thought to tell her to stop trusting her instincts and line up hereafter in the first row where she belongs, where the elbows of mortals won't impede her escape. If she'd advanced a step or two at the starting line, she'd have stood in the first row beside a pair of master hunting wolves in Striders singlets.

Stewart outran the elder of the pair from horn to harbor. The junior of the pair, though - a tall and powerful man with a brush cut, all flying elbows and heels from my vantage point and Atalanta's - loped away among the fastest hounds like Orion, the hunter in Greek mythology and the master of Sirius the dog star.

He was Steve Hulst, 48, of Zeeland, consumer of the Jam in 17:25.

Like a knowing hunter of old and a hero of Greek goddesses, Hulst conquered his age group with ease, and, finishing third overall, vanquished just about every competitor in the pantheon. But he lost to his son, the first runner to reach harbor.

Tad Hulst, 19, of Zeeland, consumer of the Jam in 16:18.

More than a mile into the course, turning toward the wide waters, the elder of the pair of master hunting wolves showed me his heels. A Striders fan lashed him on his way with brazen calls. His prowess in the hunt left me to relax into the race along a stretch of Water Street beside the lakeshore.

Not that I enjoyed the scenery as more than a passing fancy. A temperature in the lower 50s gave the dog days. under the influence of Sirius, a breath of fresh air. Not that I enjoyed the mild breezes until I thought later of the absence of a chill.

That morning in South Haven, 506 runners - 272 would-be Orions and 234 would-be Atalantas - beat the hot dog of August, sharing a tasty sample of Blueberry Jam. MR