LAINGSBURG (11/16/03) -- Any race scheduled for the latter half of November in the lower half of the Lower Peninsula takes a chance of getting a nickname if it goes by the name

"The 'Burg."

One day it might acquire the sobriquet "The Ice Berg."

The 'Burg Run -- which takes place amid woods and farmlands near Laingsburg, some 15 miles northeast of Lansing -- invites conditions cool enough to produce fast times or cold enough to freeze fingers fast.

Inevitably, a year will come when uncooperative weather, coming in the form of an early winter storm, will transform a fun footrace and walk into a bitter slide over four inches of new snow or an inch of new ice.

Inevitably, a year will come when the race starter will face a wide arc of ready runners and walkers shivering from cold rather than from nerves, and his start command will cut across a chatter of teeth.

Temperatures in the low- to mid-40s for the fourth annual 'Burg Run kept "The Ice Berg" at bay for another season. Light to moderate rains, dampening the lower half of the L.P. throughout the day, held off for the duration of the race.

Conditions favored challenges by runners, in both the 5K and the 10K distances, to personal-best times.

Nicole Bush, a senior at Kelloggsville High School, melted the ice from The 'Burg.

Fifteen days earlier Bush succumbed to an iron deficiency in her quest for a fourth-straight Division 3 cross-country championship at the state meet. She bounced back at The 'Burg to win the overall women's 5K title with a clocking of 17:48.

Bush missed her 17:41 PR, one of the nation's best times for prep girls this fall, by just seven seconds. Thus The 'Burg re-established her as a contender in the Foot Locker regional over Thanksgiving weekend.

Other overall winners in The 'Burg were Jeff Crowe of Grand Ledge in the men's 5K (17:12); Matthew Kaczor of Mt. Pleasant (32:17) and Ellen Erhardt of Grand Rapids (42:57) in the men's and women's 10K; plus Lori Lindquist (31:47) and Jerry Elliot of Grand Blanc (36:11) in the women's and men's 5K walk.

The 'Burg loops along the edges of fields and along dirt trails and grass. The course offers close-up views of Laingsburg High School from a variety of angles, but never a glimpse of the city Laingsburg. One of its loops swerves aside just short of giving a view along the road into the 'Burg.

For me, the coveted glimpse was of a clock above the finish line at the end of the 10K race.

I came to Laingsburg on a quest for a personal best in a last race of the season. Of my 16 previous starts in 2003, only one had been a 10K: on tortoise-slow sand along the beaches of Lake Michigan south of Holland.

At other distances I established best times on at least four occasions during the year. If The 'Burg proved to run on a fast track, a new 10K standard was almost a given.

Race director Chris Lantis assured me prior to the start the course could yield a good time.

Its mild ascents over gently-undulating terrain rewarded my tendency to overtake runners on the climbs. Its lawns were level enough to sustain a race pace. Its grass kept the mud from caking heavily on shoes.

Ultimately, the spurring factor came from The 'Burg's format. Entrants in the 5K and the 10K run together, diverging for a second turn around the course just before the finish line.

Striding along at 5K pace, keeping up with 5K contestants, I passed the two-mile mark in a worrisome 12:40, promising a result well below my goal of 41:00. Even with a pace adjustment, I crossed the line in 40:54. That chipped almost a minute and a half off my old best time.

As a capper, I snatched first place in my age group by four seconds, melting any chill in my heart like Indian summer in Laingsburg.

Let no one call it "The Ice Berg" within earshot of me.

Daniel G. Kelsey, editor of the weekly Plainwell & Otsego Union Enterprise, has set almost all his PRs since turning 50 in 2002. MR