Cake rises, ready to run marathon with 161 Mainers

As the warm weather has settled in, 20,000 runners are preparing for perhaps the premier event in all of road racing, the Boston Marathon.

The 109th edition of the 26.2-mile jaunt from Hopkinton to Boston will take place Monday, Patriots Day. Once again, the Pine Tree State will be well represented as 97 men and 65 women will make the trek down I-95 for the race.

One of Maine’s finest runners will be competing: Judson Cake of Bar Harbor. The 27-year-old is coming off an excellent season on the local Sub 5 race circuit, capturing the overall points title and winning the final race of the series, the Turkey Trot 5,000-meter race in Brewer, as well as finishing seventh in the Irish Red Rover 5K race in Portland with a time of 16 minutes, 26 seconds.

Cake ran his qualifying time at the Sugarloaf Marathon last May (2 hours, 31 minutes). Runners in Cake’s age group (ages 18-34) must have run a 3:10 or faster in a certified marathon as of September 2003 to qualify for this year’s race.

Cake’s hometown will be well represented as eight Bar Harbor runners will toe the line in Hopkinton.

“I didn’t realize there were eight people [from Bar Harbor competing],” Cake said.

Cake has had to alter his training over the past month or so, as he fell in December while running – where else? – on the Boston Marathon course.

“It wasn’t a real good omen,” he said of the fall. “It hampered about eight weeks of training, and when I got back into it about six weeks ago, I threw out the high-mileage scheme and went for quality stuff,” such as speed work on the track, hill workouts, and tempo runs.

Cake said he has been running 60-80 miles a week in preparation for the marathon.

“You’ve got to do a few longer runs, and mainly lactate threshold workouts,” he said of marathon training.

Cake said he has a goal of finishing “close to 2:30,” but “just finishing will make me happy.”

The Boston Marathon course is one of the more challenging in all of road racing. For the first five miles or so, the course is fairly flat, going through the historic New England villages of Hopkinton and Ashland.

Once the race enters Newton, things get tough as Heartbreak Hill comes into play and tends to break the hearts of many runners vying for the prestigious title as Boston Marathon champion. Heartbreak isn’t one big hill, it’s made up of three relatively tough climbs.

After that, it’s all downhill as the runners head home, and the students at Wellesley College give runners plenty of support. Once competitors reach the famous Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, they have just a mile to go.

In past years, the weather has played a part. Last year, temperatures hovered around 80 degrees at the starting line in Hopkinton, but once runners approach Boston, the breeze coming off Boston Harbor tends to cool them off a bit.

Other local Mainers competing include Peter Aucoin of Dedham; Brian Hubbell, Donald Bell, David Painter, Thomas St. Germain and Kevin Johnson, all of Bar Harbor; Bangor’s Peter Lodge and Clifford Rosen; Roger Marquis of Old Town, and Orono’s Tim Marquis for the men.

Local women’s runners include Amy Badger of Hermon, Bar Harbor’s Jean Bell and Mary Dudzik; Jeanne Butterfield and Nancy Contino of Bangor, Orono’s Kathleen Bell, and Christine Ganz of Mount Desert.

The race will be televised live on the Outdoor Life Network.