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Erin Dromgoole, right, and Laura Kennedy stretch before the Beach to Beacon race in Cape Elizabeth on Saturday.

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CAPE ELIZABETH — Where hundreds stood an hour earlier, cheering Kenyan Ed Muge to his victory and North Yarmouth's Ben True to his record-breaking time, there were now two or three silent souls.

They watched Michelle Carlberg and Jaimey Anderson end their race.

The VIP tent was empty. Nearby, masseuses broke down the tables where elite runners had rested aching muscles. No one stood in the media tent, pitching questions to those who had answers. The platters of melon chunks and doughnut holes were long gone.

Carlberg, of Gorham, and Anderson, of Portland, didn't expect or need a reception when they placed 5,592nd and 5,593rd out of 5,613 runners who completed the TD Banknorth Beach to Beacon 10K on Saturday morning.

"Congratulations," said race founder Joan Benoit Samuelson. "Nice job."

If the dozens of elite and competitive road runners who chase the money prizes are the legs of Beach to Beacon, then Carlberg and Anderson and thousands of others are the race's heart. They ask for nothing more than the opportunity to run Joanie's race and then melt away when it's over.

Carlberg, 29, and Anderson, 36, were first-time runners. She's a snowboarder and a rugby player when she's not working on disability claims for an insurance company. He's taking computer courses online.

She needed spinal surgery recently. "This race was the start of my comeback," she said. Anderson, whose physical activity includes weightlifting but not distance running, was her support.

Until Anderson needed Carlberg's support late in the race. "This was harder than I anticipated," he said.

They took their places near the rear of the mass of humanity that started the 6.2-mile race. Their pace was more or less pedestrian. They jogged less, at first, and walked more and quickly fell farther behind. So far behind, they thought they were in last place.

They lost visual contact with the group in front of them. That wasn't good. Runners can draw strength from one another. The larger the group, the more encouragement to forget pain and fatigue.

"The crowds did that," said Carlberg. "Sometimes I think they didn't know we were back there. Someone would see us and they'd all come back to the side of the road and cheer. That was a big lift."

The last water stop is about a mile and a half from the finish. It's there that Jacinta Littlefield, a 12-year volunteer, sees agony and triumph in the faces of those who are so far behind.

"Some are really struggling," said Littlefield. "You tell them they don't have far to go. They can do it."

Elite runners push pain aside to win. Back-of-the-pack runners do the same to reach goals. Sometimes that goal is simply to finish.

"We don't run faster," said Nancy Goldstein of Falmouth, running with her 16-year-old son, Matt. "We do run longer."

Muge won in 28 minutes, 5 seconds. True's time of 29:10 was a record for Maine runners. The Goldsteins finished in 1 hour, 31 minutes, 24 seconds. Carlberg and Anderson were 15 minutes behind the Goldsteins.

"We didn't want to finish last," said Carlberg. "We picked it up and started passing people."

The morning got hotter quickly. Flags at Fort Williams hung limp from lack of a breeze. Gina D'Angelo of Cape Elizabeth, who helps coordinate the medical volunteers, was busier than in recent years, looking for runners in distress and finding them.

When she had a moment to step back, she marveled at the strength of the human spirit. Ninety minutes and 6.2 miles after they started, runners smiled as they crossed the finish line, throwing their arms into the air. One man danced across. Couples hugged.

Each finish was personal. It didn't matter there were so few witnesses.

"They're all winners," said D'Angelo. Her words didn't sound trite at all.

Carlberg and Anderson moved off but not to the hilltop overlooking the ocean where race organizers and...