The two hour pacer from the race got in contact with deadspin
Update (7:40 p.m. ET): A pacesetter at the half marathon wrote in to me after the article went up. Here is his account:
I was one of the 2:00 pacers on the course. As such I was able to see who was ahead of me on the turnarounds of the course. The course map you showed in your article was correct. These two ladies were dressed to impress and hard to miss in their flaming pink outfits. My co-pacer and I saw them turn in front of us when we were at the 12 mile mark. At that point they should have gone around for the second loop but they didn’t. They turned left and ran the last two miles instead.
You can check my official time, which is correct. If they had run close to two hours they would have been right alongside of my co-pacer and me for the entire run. Afterwards I saw them taking selfies and photos at the winery, and they were definitely looking too good to have just run 13.1 miles! I watched them take the photo you posted in the article, as I was standing 5 feet away from them after the run. That’s what brought this to my attention as I recognized the girl immediately as one of the two who cut the course.