Ages 17 to 76, they crowded around their coach, Cheryl White, who wore a white plastic bag with her title hand-lettered on it in black letters.

White said they’d been training for the Tacoma City Marathon races since January, running as a group each week and also on their own. Friday night they partied with pasta, carbo-loading for Saturday’s races.

Most of them were waiting for the 7:30 a.m. start of the 13-mile half-marathon, but two in the group planned to run the 10K. One of the pair, Karen Gustafson, 42, said she’d beaten leukemia five years ago with a stem cell transplant. The run would be easy.

“And I’m going to finish,” she said emphatically.

Finishing was the goal of most, if not all 2,000 runners who registered for the second running of the marathon. Gray skies, cool temperatures and a few raindrops added up to perfect weather for runners.

At least a thousand spectators, friends and families of the runners cheered the athletes through the finish line near the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center at South 17th Street and Commerce.

Michael Lynes repeated as the male winner, setting a course record of two hours, 38 minutes and 11 seconds. He bettered his old mark by two minutes and nine seconds.

The female winner was Annie Thiessen, 37, a Tacoma veterinarian. She finished the 26.2-mile course through Tacoma in 3:00:22. Slightly injured last year, she’d run as a pacer and still came in second at 3:18:03.

The win was her second-best time ever, she said.

“It was a perfect day to run the course,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

Nearly 2,000 runners registered for one of the morning’s three races, according to race co-director Paul Morrison of Fleet Feet Sports in Bonney Lake. Last year there were more than 1,700 registered.

“We want the Tacoma City Marathon to be the premiere race in the state of Washington,” Morrison said. That will take time, he said, noting that the Seattle Marathon attracts more than 10,000 runners and took 10 years to grow to that size.

Good race organization, a scenic course through Tacoma and three parks complete with great views of Commencement Bay along Ruston Way will bring people back and attract more runners, Morrison said.

Mel Preedy, 75, of Ravensale in east King County, was back to run his second Tacoma City Marathon. The retired Boeing Co. employee fidgeted with excitement as he waited with roughly 500 runners for the 7 a.m. start of the full marathon.

He wore the yellow running shirt of a Marathon Maniac, a group of more than 500 marathoners across the country who are addicted to marathons.

Preedy has earned his shirt, completing 335 marathons, including the Boston Marathon, since he started running when he was 50 years old. He ran the Vancouver Island (B.C.) Marathon last weekend and is planning to do the Olympia Marathon next weekend.

“It makes me feel good,” he said. His big smile agreed.

Chris Allen of Tacoma planned to do the half-marathon. He couldn’t make the marathon last year but had a good excuse. It was held on Mother’s Day and his wife had just had a baby.

This year he had the time. And where were his wife and the baby?

“In bed,” he said.

Ryan Funk, 24, of Puyallup, was another half-marathoner. He wore a T-shirt identifying him as a member of the Diabetic Action Team. He patted the small automatic insulin dispenser attached to his waist.

He explained that he, his dad, Jeff, and his brother Paul – who were running the full marathon – had Type 1 diabetes and raised money to fight the disease.

Later, before the start of the 10K run, the “crazy wig guy” strolled up Market Street wearing an orange-and-black fright wig.

Yannick Fourage, 45, is a fixture at many Northwest races. He’s participated in 31 Sound to Narrows races.

“For the last five or six years I’ve put on wigs and costumes when I run,” he said. “I have maybe 10 different wigs. This is my troll wig.”

And he’s not a bad runner. He said he finished third in his age group in the 12K Bloomsday Run in Spokane last weekend.

Long-distance running, however, isn’t without pain and suffering, so some 60 volunteers staffed the MultiCare Sports Medicine tent set up at the finish line.

The doctors, nurses and other medical specialists were busy treating nausea, a fractured toe, muscle cramps, blisters and back spasms. Bags of ice were everywhere. Two tubs full of ice water waited in case someone had heat exhaustion or just needed to cool down.

Dr. Michael Bateman, a Tacoma sports medicine doctor, said the ice water probably wouldn’t be needed. The weather wasn’t hot enough. Still, he estimated the team would treat perhaps 100 runners by the time the races ended.

The early finishers are usually in good shape, he said. The rush comes later.

“It’s the slower ones who drink too much water,” he said.

The doctor’s advice to would-be marathoners: “Get in shape.”

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692

More photos | For an online gallery of action from the Tacoma City Marathon, visit our Web site.