LEELANAU PENINSULA (9/18/04) - "THIS race is unmissable!" Those were the words of Ken Flannery, 44, of Williamston, who demolished his own 5K Harvest Stompede record in the unspeakably-beautiful Leelanau Peninsula northwest of Traverse City.

His training partner, Julian Emery, 40, of East Jordan, echoed those sentiments, and his performance, by crushing her course record, too.

He ran 20:58, beating his old standard by 50 seconds, and she ran 22:00, beating hers by 52. Those times, by people used to running two or three minutes faster, give a hint of the difficulty of running up and down the breathtaking - visually and literally - hills of the grape-laden vineyards.

That Flannery and Emery were there at all speaks volumes about the event. Both had children running in cross-country meets at the same time, and neither misses their kids' meets - except when it comes time to missing the Stompede, which is impossible. Flannery won the 5K two years ago, lost it by a hair last year, and vowed, "I'm not going to take second this year. It's the funnest race there is."

OK, we'll allow an un-un adjective. Leading start-to-finish only increased the fun. Flannery's daughter, Allison, was running for Elk Rapids High at the Holly Invitational that morning. "It's the one meet I'll miss all year," her father said. Flannery's son, Skyler, a seventh-grader, ran the Stompede and led entrants 20 and under in 25:17. Last year, Flannery talked Emery into entering her first Stompede. Later, she jokingly cursed him for subjecting her to those hills and her slowest time of the year. But she came back this year, missing her daughter Chelsea's meet in Ludington.

There are a lot of uns besides unmissable that apply to the 5K and even-more un-ish 7-miler. Unbelievable. Ungodly tough. Unutterably spectacular. Unmistakably one of the finest places to run on God's earth.

Ask Brett Sanborn. Proudly wearing a Hansons singlet, he did some course demolishing, too, in the oh-so-tough 7-miler, which includes a seemingly-endless (more than a mile) trek up Mt. Death, up through loose sand and rises that appear like vertical walls.

But, oh, those views - including one from way atop Grand Traverse Bay when you finally peak.

Sanborn, 37, said he'd been reading about the Stompede for years in Michigan Runner and the Detroit News, and decided finally to see what the raving was about. So he drove up from Rochester Hills and learned firsthand that this is one event, and one course, that even someone emotionally addicted to a thesaurus couldn't exaggerate about.

"It was beautiful, and very tough," he said. "It was just gorgeous everywhere.

"I knew about that hill at four miles," added Sanborn, though not many thought of Mt. Death, which began its perpetual climb after runners left Black Star Farms after running up and down long rows of grapevines. "But the last hill at the end was a surprise."

It, too, seemed to go on and on, followed by a brief, steep downhill plunge to the finish line and a small pit of grapes waiting for runners to put the stomp into the Stompede. Neither hill went on long enough to stop Sanborn from breaking the course record in 41:52, or beating defending-champ Lou Feil, second in 42:57.

Amy Powell, running in the 35-39 age group, led the women in 50:23, with runner-up Tori McConnell finishing in 51:09.

Bruce Los, in the 45-49 grouping, was sixth overall and led the masters in 46:50. Dottie Spencer-Bejesky topped the women masters in 55:11, and was overheard telling a friend while sipping wine later that afternoon at Willow Vineyard, with Grand Traverse Bay gleaming in the background, far below, "I just turned 50, so it was nice to still be able to beat all the 40-year-olds."

Sanborn, with his girlfriend and her two kids, took off to take advantage of one of Leelanau's attractions, the Sleeping Bear sand dune. Others, like Spencer-Bejesky, stuck around to take advantage of another attraction - the first of two days of wine-tasting at 11 peninsula wineries.

The cobalt-blue skies and sun beating down on a day more August-like than harvest-like made things all the more perfect.

The fourth-annual Stompede set its all-time attendance mark, with 682 registered competitors, up from 546 a year ago, including about 300 in the 3-mile walk and nearly 200 in the 5K run. MR