NORTHEAST HARBOR – For three miles on Saturday morning, Judson Cake and Andy Beardsley played the classic game dueling distance runners seem to love so much.

While some of the more recreational runners may have been enjoying the beautiful views along Sargent Drive during the 23rd Northeast Harbor 5-miler, Cake and Beardsley were battling.

Cake? The 23-year-old Bar Harbor runner wanted to get rid of his 37-year-old foe. And Beardsley? He just wanted to hang on long enough to launch an assault of his own.

“I tried to make a bunch of surges between mile two and three. Going up the hills, and on the flat stretches, I’d get about five feet ahead of him, and then he’d catch right back up,” Cake said.

Five feet behind (or less depending on whether Cake was surging or waiting to surge again), Beardsley dug in and held on. And when he made his move – just after passing the three-mile mark – Cake had no answer.

“He kind of drafted off me for three miles, and then I just lost my steam and cruised in,” Cake said.

Surry’s Beardsley, the cross country and track coach at Ellsworth High School, captured the win by a comfortable margin, completing the rolling, hilly course in 26 minutes, 53 seconds. Cake was second in 27:11, while Bob Carroll of Forestville, N.Y., was third in 27:22.

In the women’s race, former George Mason University runner Becky Heuer, also of Forestville, N.Y., ran virtually unchallenged the entire race and won in 30:40. Lisa Patterson of Brewer was second in 34:56 while Eve Harrison of Islesford took third in 36:54.

In all, 115 runners completed the course.

Heuer, who was on vacation with Carroll, her boyfriend and the men’s third-place finisher, said the couple stumbled across the race last year and planned a vacation around it this summer.

“It’s the most beautiful course I think I’ve run on,” Heuer said. “[The scenery] takes you a little bit away from the race, which is fine, because it’s a long race for me.”

Heuer is a track specialist, and is running as fast in the 800 (2:13) at age 36 as she did as a standout at George Mason.

Still, she was a bit fatigued on Saturday.

“I ran my longest run, yesterday. Ever. Sixteen miles,” Heuer said with a shake of her head.

“That’s why I ran really slow in the beginning. I didn’t run half bad for having run 16 yesterday.”

In the men’s race, Beardsley said having raced against Cake in a race at Schoodic two weeks ago paid off.

“He’s got good speed, and as I get older, I don’t have much speed any more,” Beardsley said. “He’s fast, and I figure if I’m gonna try and win, I’d better do something.”

He did just that at the three-mile mark, turning a two-yard deficit into a 50-yard lead over a span of a few hundred yards in what looked like a carefully planned attack.

Beardsley said that wasn’t the case at all.

“I didn’t have any decision to go at three miles until I got there,” Beardsley said.

“I just knew I didn’t want to lead [early], and I didn’t want to take it out fast,” Beardsley said.

“And I knew I wanted to take the lead before the end, and not wait for the last half mile because that would maybe give him a little more confidence than I wanted.”

When Beardsley took off, he never looked back, and Cake never mounted another challenge.

“I thought, ‘I’ll go now,’ Beardsley said of his mile-three gambit. “And I pushed it. I guess it worked out OK.”