BANGOR – With 20 seconds separating first and second place in Sunday’s Paul Bunyan 15K, there seemed to be no question who would be the overall winner.

Unfortunately, the first two finishers, Andy Beardsley and Adam Goode, weren’t clear on who should take home the granite trophy.

Beardsley of Surry caught up to leader Goode at the seven-mile mark and began his push to the finish.

“I was trailing Adam most of the way by at least 30 seconds and I pulled him in around mile seven,” said Beardsley. “I knew the area well, I was looking at my watch, and I had made a gap with Adam, so I knew he was behind me.”

The final stretch of the race came down Garland Street, turned left at William S. Cohen School and finished on the Cameron Stadium track.

As Beardsley approached Cohen School, he continued running instead of making the left turn.

“I clearly know I missed the left turn into Cohen. There was no one to direct me in,” said Beardsley. “I figured I had to go straight and head up to Mount Hope and come in from the other entrance to Cameron and somehow end up on the track. I saw the marathon arrows and turned and came back in.”

While Beardsley was turning around, Goode followed the newly placed cones in front of the school, finishing the race first.

“Andy passed me on mile seven and he clearly was going to beat me, so you’ve got to be honest, you can’t deny that,” said Goode. “I wasn’t going to run as fast as him.”

The runners consulted with race director Phil Lebreton and Beardsley was officially crowned the winner.

“After talking to Andy and with the timing guy, we calculated what we figured the difference was. Adam agreed to it, and the timing guy reversed the winner and we reprinted the results,” said Lebreton. “Adam and Andy were fine with that.”

The 43-year-old Beardsley finished in 50 minutes, 45 seconds.

“To say I won the race stretches the truth,” said Goode. “In my mind I know how fast I ran and how fast I would have run and what the outcome would have been other than random luck.”

Adding to the confusion, for both the men and the women, was the actual distance of the race. A 15,000-meter run is equal to 9.3 miles; however, this 15K was between 8.9 and 9 miles.

“We made an announcement about a week ago and we sent e-mails out that it was just about 8.9 miles,” said LaBreton. “When we measured the course, they were doing some pavement on Garland Street, so we had to work around measuring it [based on] where they were doing construction.”

Goode crossed the finish line in 51:05 and Tommy McWalters of Thorndike took third place with a time of 55:08. Fourth place went to Chris Jones of Bucksport in 55:41 and 18-year-old Ryan Lena from Orono rounded out the top five in 56:13.

In the women’s race, Cassie Hintz avoided all controversy, finishing in 54:01.

The 18-year-old from Stillwater used the race as a “tempo run” after running a race on Saturday.

“I ran the Tremont Trot yesterday and that was four miles,” said Hintz. “I’m friends with Phil, so I kind of committed to both.”

Second-place finisher Tammy Slusser of Monroeville, Pa., arrived in Maine on Saturday with her husband, Don, as part of their trek around the Northeast.

“My husband and I went on vacation two weeks ago and have been traveling around the Adirondacks,” said Slusser. “I’ve already done two marathons this summer and I have two more in the fall, so I decided to take it easy.”

Slusser finished in 56:17 and waited, camera in hand, for her husband to finish the marathon.

“This race was actually flat compared to the runs in Western Pennsylvania,” said Slusser. “We’re on our way to Nova Scotia after this for another marathon.”

Bangor resident Alexi Asimakopoulos took third place in 59:26. The duo of Angela Ewings of Littleton and Linda Mountain of Mapleton finished at 1:06:40 and 1:06:43, respectively.