Andy Beardsley had productive, pleasant weekend

It was a busy weekend of coaching and competing for Andy Beardsley.

On Saturday, he coached the Ellsworth High boys squad to its second straight Penobscot Valley Conference Class B championship. The Eagles finished with 32 points, 12 ahead of second-place Caribou. Logan Will, Akihisa Ishida, Ben Chapman and Alec Phippen placed among the top eight finishers for Ellsworth, and Dakota Hellum finished 11th as all five of the Eagles’ scoring runners finished within a 1-minute, 48.1-second span.

On Sunday, Beardsley was a more active competitor, racing to a second-place finish in the sixth annual Mount Desert Island Marathon.

And as he had watched his runners compete a day earlier, many of the Eagles were on hand to follow their coach’s progress along the 26-mile, 385-yard route from downtown Bar Harbor to downtown Southwest Harbor.

“For me being a high school cross country coach, I train with the kids and this is my chance to go out and run,” said Beardsley. “What makes it all worthwhile is that my family’s here, my wife and kids, and a bunch of my runners came to cheer me.”

Beardsley, a veteran of “11 or 12” marathons, including three Boston Marathons and all six MDI events, pulled away from Matt Frongillo of Bar Harbor at mile 25 to finish in 2:41:20, trailing only four-time race winner David Herr of Canaan, Vt. (2:37:44).

That wasn’t Beardsley’s personal-best time for the distance, but it enabled him to finish second to Herr for the second straight year after a third-place finish behind Herr and race winner Judson Cake of Bar Harbor in 2005.

“For me that’s about right,” said Beardsley of his time. “I’m 43 now, so if I can run my age, I’m really happy.”

Beardsley is not a prolific marathoner but enjoys competing at the distance as long as it doesn’t interfere with coaching.

“For me, I’d like to keep doing this race because it’s on Sunday and doesn’t conflict with anything,” said Beardsley. “My priority is not my running, it’s actually my coaching, but since it’s on Sunday … the PVCs were [Saturday], so then my kids today were able to coach me after I coached them on Saturday.”

Ellsworth’s cross country team returns to action Saturday in the Eastern Maine championship meet at the Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast.