BANGOR – Pat Sullivan knew if Mike Gaige was close to him in the waning stages of the seventh Grant’s Dairy 5-Mile Milk Run, he was in trouble.

So he made sure Gaige wasn’t close.

Sullivan, the head outdoor track and cross country coach at Bangor High School, began pulling away from defending Milk Run champ Gaige at the three-mile mark and cruised to a 14-second victory over his Bangor High cross country assistant.

Hampden’s Sheila Hodges, running her third race in as many days, won the women’s division by 20 seconds over Katrina Bisheimer of Bangor. There were 72 finishers in the race, the sixth in the Sub 5 Track Club-Bangor Daily News Charities Race Series.

Bangor’s Sullivan covered the course in 26 minutes, 58 seconds, with Gaige, also from Bangor, finishing in 27:12. Belfast’s Randy MacNeill was third in 27:56 followed by Orrington’s Glendon Rand (28:22) and Bangor’s Scott Hosmer (29:14). Bangor’s Peter Dauphinee also clocked a 29:14 to finish sixth.

Hodges ran the route in 33:09 and Bisheimer clocked a 33:29. Waterville’s Dena Flye was third in 34:46; Bangor’s Nichi Farnham was fourth in 35:13 and Bucksport’s Margaret Jones was fifth in 35:52.

“I tried to run the last two miles hard,” explained the 34-year-old Sullivan, a 6-foot-2, 160-pound native of Washington, D.C. “Mike has a good kick so I needed to get as much distance between us as possible. I tried to work the hills. Mike’s starting to get back into shape.”

The 43-year-old Gaige has been plagued by injuries caused by running on asphalt.

“Running on asphalt beats me up,” explained Gaige, a legal assistant who has a sports nutrition business. “In my first three races, I hurt my calf muscle. So I’ve lost a lot of training time. I’ve probably lost five weeks of training.”

This was the second pain-free road race for Gaige, who said, “Pat is too strong on the hills for me right now.”

Sullivan said he was happy with his time and that he expected the race to come down to a two-man event between himself and Gaige.

Hodges was satisfied with her performance, especially since she had run 5K events on Friday and Saturday.

“I can’t complain about my time,” said Hodges. “My first two miles were slow and then on mile three, I started putting in 100 percent. I just focused on (Lamoine’s) Bill Pinkham.

“I just turned 40 and I’m looking for good times this year,” added Hodges, who runs her own cleaning business.

Bisheimer, a native of Calgary, Alberta, who moved to Bangor a year and a half ago, said she followed Hodges virtually the whole way.

“I was happy with my time. It was the first time I had run this course although there’s a group of us who run parts of this course at noon time every day,” said Bisheimer, a nurse at Acadia Hospital who recently turned 30.

Sullivan and Hodges added to their respective leads in the BDN series.

Hodges entered the race with a four-point lead over Donna Hurley, who didn’t run the event, and Sullivan had an eight-point edge on Tim Wakeland, who also didn’t run.

Grant’s 5-Miler Top 5 men

Pat Sullivan 26:58 Mike Gaige 27:12 Randy MacNeill 27:16 Glendon Rand 28:22 Scott Hosmer 29:14

Top 5 women

Sheila Hodges 33:09 Katrina Bisheimer 33:29 Dena Flye 34:46 Nichi Farnham 35:13 Margaret Jones 35:52