We all know about runners -- too thin, too healthy, maybe too rich, leaping from BMWs in their hyper-expensive shoes. Meet Caroline Russell, none of the above, who has taught members of the top-drawer Impala Racing Team that the last to cross the finish line has a story to tell. PNS columnist Eve Pell runs for the Impalas and is currently the nation's top-ranked road runner in the women's age 60-64 division. She writes a monthly column on veteran athletes for Pacific News Service.

A lot of people find runners very annoying.

I know, because I run. Many of us flaunt our thinness, our high-tech shoes, our demanding training routines and in-your-face health. We carry enough water bottles to take us across the Sahara, and have already put in miles before most people have their first cup of coffee.

There's a whole image that goes with running, too: BMW, cell phone, corporate job.

Then there's Caroline Russell. Solidly built. Middle-aged. Black. Slow. Her mother was a cook, her father a plasterer and sheet metal worker. When she went to grade school, a little black girl was not allowed to attend classes with little white girls. She couldn't afford four years of college. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970's, got a job with a transit company, worked her way up to become one of the first blacks in the radio room, then a supervisor.

You would never expect to find Caroline in a running club, let alone the San Francisco-based Impala Racing Team -- an all-female group of competitive athletes. Last year, the team won top place in our league in all age groups, and two of us were ranked number one in the nation in our age groups. Every four years, a few Impalas qualify for the Olympic trials. We train hard and the racing team is a priority in our lives.

Despite this unusual commitment to winning races, most Impalas match the stereotype -- thin, white, and professional. But our inspiration is not so much our fastest teammates as it is Caroline Russell, who never comes close to winning a race.

Nine years ago, she weighed 180 pounds and feared she might get the diabetes that runs in her family. A friend told her about the Impalas, and she showed up at a few practices. "I had on these regular old tennis shoes and I huffed and puffed around that track," she told me. "I didn't even know there were fancy shoes just for running."

The team accepted and encouraged her. The pounds began to come off, her times improved -- but she still brings up the rear in every time trial. In races, her goal is simply not to be last. She works hard for the team, volunteers for fund-raisers, and shows up in uniform for every race.

But that's not why she is a legend to her teammates.

For the last two years, Caroline has wanted to run the Boston Marathon, the nation's oldest race. To qualify, a woman in her 50s must first finish a marathon in four hours or less. So Caroline entered the Cal International Marathon last December. She trained hard all summer and fall, and when winter came, she was ready.

But El Nino had other plans. At 2:30 a.m. on marathon day, the sound of water pounding down the drainpipes of her motel woke Caroline. When she rose at 4:45, it was still pouring. She pulled on her Impala uniform, wondering, "Do I have all my marbles?" but, like the thousands running with her, she concentrated on her goal.

The weather even cleared for the start, but came back with a vengeance: gusting headwinds, sheets of rain, dropping temperatures. "The rain was not just hitting me in my face, it was hurting me in my face and legs," she said. At mile 10, she spotted two teammates on the sidelines cheering her. At mile 18, her sister, also an Impala, ran along for a little while. Caroline's clammy uniform pressed cold against her skin. "My nose ran like the rain, and I thought my bones were going to break," she recalled. "But I didn't dare stop because I knew I would never get started again."

At mile 22, a bus for stragglers pulled up and someone said, "Honey! Come on in, it is too bad for this." She knew she had been running for more than four hours, but she waved the bus away. A little later, a policeman told her the road was now open to cars and she would have to run in the bike lane. "I couldn't see the bike lane in all the water. I couldn't even see my shoes!" She splashed on, then exhaustion forced her to start walking.

A mile or so later, another policeman offered her a ride in his car, then tried to order her off the course when she wouldn't quit.

"I would have loved to hop in a warm car," Caroline said. "And if I had not been wearing my uniform, I'd have gone in a second. But we were in Sacramento, home territory of our rivals the Buffalo Chips, and I was wearing my Impala uniform. I couldn't let the Chips see an Impala quit." Although her legs were cramping severely, she gathered her remaining energies and, as the finish line neared, began to run again despite her hypothermia and exhaustion. Her final time: five hours and forty-five minutes.

"I was shivering and I could hardly lift up my legs," Caroline recalled. "I was so out of it, I didn't know what was happening to my body." Paramedics sent her straight to the emergency room at a Sacramento hospital where she remained until her body temperature rose and she was out of danger.

"But wasn't that a dumb thing to do?" a non-running friend asked after I once described Caroline's ordeal. "She could have really hurt herself." My friend was right -- finishing that marathon probably wasn't the wisest thing Caroline ever did. But it's just that triumph of human grit over the forces of El Nino and the limitations of the body that shows the rest of us what sport is truly about. Let the exercise addicts have their fads and their toned bodies; let the competitors have their personal bests and their medals. Caroline Russell's marathon is in the zone where sports becomes spiritual, a quest that touches the soul.

"You know," she said recently, as she reflected on her experience, "The last person in the race has a story to tell, and that story can be helpful to the person that came in first."