Beth Freitas and Meg Crandall - 61-year-old twins -- both discovered they had breast cancer 13 years ago. Running became less leisure and more urgent for the twins as they tried to keep the disease at bay.
"I ran through chemo," said Crandall, of Troy, Mich.
Their cancer has been in remission for more than a decade. And they've run more than 100 marathons combined. They traveled from Michigan to honor a friend and runner who has a heart defibrillator.
But they never achieved their goal over the weekend. The sisters figured that they had to enter a race named the "Twin Cities Marathon," but Crandall missed the entry deadline. She instead entered the 10-mile Sunday before waiting for her sister to finish the marathon hours later.
"We can inspire people to run," said Freitas, who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich. She finished in 4:55:26.
MYRON P. MEDCALF
