Turkey Trot ends in ‘Cake-walk’ Cake men’s winner; Clark women’s champ

BREWER – For about a mile of Sunday’s 21st Turkey Trot 5K, Judson Cake did the smart thing: He sat behind race leader Michael Bunker and let the University of Southern Maine sophomore serve as a wind-break on a cool and blustery afternoon.

For the other 2.1 miles, Bar Harbor’s Cake did exactly what Bunker thought his friend would do.

He dominated.

Cake blew open a close race with a devastating surge he unleashed at the mile mark, then proceeded to turn the rest of the Turkey Trot into a bit of a (you knew this was coming) Cake-walk.

“We hit the first mile in 5:09, but the wind was hitting us so hard we were definitely going with like a 4:50 effort,” Bunker said. “Then Judson threw a huge surge and he dropped us like a bad habit. Right there. It was crazy.”

Cake quickly built a 100-meter lead and extended it over the next two miles en route to a winning time of 15 minutes, 54 seconds. In all, 426 runners finished the race.

Bucksport’s Bunker, who trained with Cake all summer, was second in 16:26 while former Piscataquis Community High star Mike Chilly was third in 16:38.

Cake said a midweek training run on the Turkey Trot course let him know he was ready to aim for the course record of 15:11, but race-day conditions changed his plan.

“I just decided to go tactical,” Cake said. “So I just stayed with everyone for the first mile, and then ran like hell.”

The women’s race wasn’t nearly as clear-cut. In fact, the final result wasn’t really known until several minutes after the first two women crossed the finish line.

The reason: Clear victor Heather Clark of Brewer (who finished in a speedy 18:18) arrived at the race shortly before the start and chose not to enter officially. That apparently left Joanne Nealey of Northport (18:28) as the champ. Kathleen Bell finished in 19:37.

Not so fast.

Race organizers allowed Clark to pay her entry fee after the race, and she ended up capturing her first Turkey Trot title.

“I just got here and there was 10, 20 minutes ’til the race and I was just like, ‘I’ll just warm up and go out there and run,'” Clark said.

“I didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal,” she said.

Clark, who was using the race as a workout in preparation for next weekend’s FootLocker cross country regional championship meet, was pleased with her run. And what she did came as no surprise to Nealey, who is also Belfast High’s cross country coach.

Nealey said she heard Clark say that she wasn’t officially entered when the runners were at the starting line, but she chose to ignore the comment.

“It threw me a little, and I thought, ‘That’s strange,’ but I didn’t let that [bother me],” Nealey said. “I tried to beat her anyway, and I think she helped my time. I was pleased to be that close to her.”