Jan Smith was getting annoyed.

There she was, in the last leg of a 20-mile race, going back and forth with two guys -- leading, following, leading, following - until, finally, the finish chute was in sight. Smith turned on the steam and passed them only to be edged out at the tape - "which," she says, "is very rude.

"In a situation like that you shouldn't just cut someone off. So I bumped into them."

As it turned out, one man was blind and the other was his race escort -- which Smith didn't learn until a day later in a chance encounter with Floyd Hatch, the guide. Hatch invited Smith to run with them and just like that, Smith's life veered in a new direction.

For the past 20 years Smith has volunteered as a race escort for athletes with various disabilities. Among them: Ken Duke, the runner to whom she had given that competitive body bump.

Serving others requires a caring attitude, something Smith credits to parents who "constantly served and helped and had me involved in helping other people." It also helps to find a niche that fits.

"The idea of helping was just a natural flow when I heard there was a need with Ken," says Smith, 52. "It's the joy of helping others do something they enjoy. That's as simple as it gets. Helping these people turns an ordinary life into something extraordinary."

Smith's path to service was set after attending the 1996 New York Marathon with Duke and Hatch. She escorted a blind Bulgarian runner, a match made by the city's Achilles Track Club, and the experience was life changing.

"To go back to New York and see 240 disabled athletes at the start line of the New York Marathon … people didn't have legs, they didn't have arms, they were blind, they were deaf, they were in wheelchairs, they were from all over the world," Smith says. "We came back and said there must be other disabled athletes who could use help here."

Smith, the two men and others launched a Utah chapter of the running club. Since then, Smith has been a guide in some 20 races -- marathons, half-marathons, 10Ks, 5Ks. Her latest outreach is training with at-risk girls in a newly launched Girls on the Run program.

"Who wouldn't want to help someone who was going out of their way to stay healthy?" asks Smith, who lives in Salt Lake City and is a compensation specialist at Questar. "When I see how many people are not physically active and you see someone like [Ken] who has every reason in the book not to but he does, it really is amazing. "

Teams of guides usually work together to help an athlete with a disability complete a long race. If the runner cannot see, "you're responsible for his every step," Smith says. "It's a long time to watch that closely."

Guides need stamina if they are helping an athlete who uses a wheelchair and strength if there is a chance a runner will need physical support. But the key quality is a positive attitude, which Smith never fails to supply.

"She just encourages people and makes them feel it's just a disability, not an inability," says Jack Richmond, a below-the-knee amputee who has run about eight races with Smith. "Jan looks for ways to be a blessing for other people, not just in running but in all areas of her life."

The chapter does its best to match abilities of escorts and athletes, but Smith says it doesn't always work out.

Last year, she was a guide in the Salt Lake Marathon for Gary Hahn, 40, who has brain damage. Hahn had passed out in a previous race after pushing himself too hard, so Smith's task was to not let him overdo it. But the Bountiful man set off on a pace that was faster than Smith could handle.

"He asked if he could leave me," Smith says. "So I said, 'Gary, can I trust you to run along and push yourself so you're not going to pass out?' He said, 'Yeah, I'll be careful' and took off."

Smith stressed the rest of the race. But "I get to the finish line and he's just beaming. He had this really fast time and he looked great," she says with a laugh. "I was a failure. I couldn't keep up. "

Failure? Not to Hahn. "She's very nice," says Hahn, who has completed two marathons and a half-marathon. "She would tell me, 'Slow down. Don't overdo it. … You're almost there, don't give up.' "

Almost there. The finish line. That's what it's all about.

"The most rewarding thing is to see the smiles on people's faces who competed with every single able-bodied person the same way, at the same start, the same distance, the same course," Smith says. "To see the smile on their face and the sense of accomplishment they have, that makes it all worthwhile."

brooke@sltrib.com