When Andy Spaulding of Freeport passed Byrne Decker of Yarmouth with a mile and a half remaining Saturday in the Peoples Beach to Beacon 10-kilometer (6.2 mile) road race in Cape Elizabeth, he was momentarily stunned.

Even though the former Searsport High and University of Maine star had been optimistic about his chances of winning the Maine-only competition, and the $1,000 prize money that goes with it, he hadn’t expected to be so close to Decker at that stage of the race.

Decker had defeated him twice in races earlier in the season. And Spaulding, who moved back to Maine from Connecticut in September, has had a rough time hitting his stride again after several months of reduced training throughout the fall and winter.

“I just wasn’t prepared for that … But I just gutted my way home, like in high school when the coach says turn the corner and sprint [to the finish],” he said.

Spaulding clocked 31 minutes, 29 seconds.

Bates College star Justin Easter (31:45) and 42-year-old Bob Winn of Ogunquit (31:54) overtook Decker (32:19) in the latter stages of the race. Michael Payson of Falmouth was fifth in 32:23. Winn was also fourth in the overall masters competition.

In the women’s race, two-time runner-up Christine Snow-Reaser, 35, of Dayton finally claimed top honors. The mother of two triumphed even after being diagnosed with uterine cancer in June and losing the baby she had been carrying. Maggie Hanson of Bowdoinham, who runs for Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., earned second (37:35) ahead of three-time defending champion Julia Kirtland of Brunswick (37:59).

It was Spaulding’s first Beach to Beacon and a bit of a long-awaited homecoming. Spaulding and his wife had been so eager to return to Maine last year that they purchased a house in Freeport before they found jobs in the state. That meant Spaulding endured a weekly commute to White Plains, N.Y., before finally finding a job in Augusta in January.

“Why Maine?” Spaulding asked rhetorically. “Any Mainer that loves it for what it is, knows.”

He added that seeing spectators from the Bangor area encouraged him to run strong up the final hill on the course. At the top of that hill it is about two-tenths of a mile downhill to the finish.

“It really meant a lot hearing the Bangor crew shouting at the top of the hill, the old Sub 5 [Track Club] trackies,” he said.

Snow-Reaser appeared to have an easier time than Spaulding did out on the course, leading from start to finish and besting Hanson by more than a minute. But if her victory looked easy on the day, it concealed what has been an agonizing test of endurance for her this summer.

In June, when she was three months pregnant, Snow-Reaser went to her doctor for a routine check-up and discovered she had a cancerous tumor on her uterus. The fetus had been destroyed, and on June 18 she had to have an operation to remove the tumor.

“I didn’t care about running at first, I just wanted to see my children grow up. Three weeks ago I started feeling good. I had no idea I was even running [this race] three weeks ago. I’m in awe I could get to this point,” she said.

Snow-Reaser had curtailed her training during the pregnancy but she quickly upped her mileage to 100 per week in preparation for the Beach to Beacon. She has to have weekly blood tests for a year, and if the cancer returns she may have to undergo chemotherapy.

Hanson was fourth last year, but the 21-year-old former Mount Ararat of Topsham star still surprised by finishing ahead of Kirtland, a former national champion in the marathon.

It was Kirtland’s first race since September. The 36-year-old said she took some time off from training for personal reasons and is currently running 60 to 70 miles per week. She hopes to be fit for the New York City Marathon in October.

Race sets record

This year’s race set a record for the most finishers ever – 3,680 – in a road race in Maine. It was the first time a race has surpassed the 3,500 finisher mark. Runners from seventeen countries and 48 states toed the line.

The children’s 1-kilometer race also attracted about 400 competitors. Race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson was nearly moved to tears during the awards ceremony when she described watching handicapped children competing in the race.

“There was a girl with severe handicaps in the kids race, and I saw her and I thought, if this is what this [race] is doing, we should be doing it every day,” she said later.

This year’s race beneficiary was the Kids’ First Center, a Portland-based organization that helps families deal with the trauma of divorce. The race raised $30,000 for the center, and volunteer runners raised an additional $24,000 through pledges.

Bannister serves as marshall

Englishman Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run under four minutes for the mile, served as this year’s race marshall. Boston Marathon running legend Johnny Kelly was the marshall for the first three years.

Samuelson said that Kelly had to cancel his appearance at this year’s race at the last minute. But on Tuesday, she received a message on her answering machine that Bannister, who was vacationing in Maine, had read about the race in a newspaper and wanted to attend.

Bannister was more than willing to accept Samuelson’s offer.

“I looked forward to coming [to this race]. I believe that [Samuelson] has been the biggest contributor to American running and to the realization of what women’s running can be,” Bannister said.