Huntington Beach Man Outdistances His Competitors in Detroit Marathon

All things considered, Michael Trujillo, 37, of Huntington Beach, clearly outclassed all the 3,150 runners in the recent Detroit Free Press International Marathon in Detroit with his time of 2:02:20 for the 26.2-mile race.

But the muscular Trujillo had an advantage. Paralyzed from the waist down, he powered his way in a specially built wheelchair racer, beating the winning runner’s time by 21 minutes and the second-place wheelchair entrant by six minutes. Sixty-five wheelchair racers competed.

The marathon was watched by an estimated 50,000 spectators, and “it was the crowd that lined the course that helped me the most,” said Trujillo, who was paralyzed from the waist down following a 1967 car accident when he was 19 years old. “Somebody would give you some water, pat you on the back and just give you a boost to get me through another mile. Then somebody else would help the next mile.”

Trujillo said a number of his relatives from Detroit lined the course and some waited for him at the finish line.

Most remarkably, one of his tires lost air pressure “and that made the chair a little squirrelly,” he said. The tire only had 50 of the original 160 pounds of pressure at the finish, and during the race he sometimes reached 35 m.p.h. on downhill grades.

“To win the marathon was a big goal,” said Trujillo, who was only in his second marathon, “and I achieved that. I feel real good about myself.” But he noted he was well prepared, having practiced daily on the bike path along Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, sometimes recording 18 miles. “I’m in my best shape since the injury,” he said. He also plays wheelchair basketball.

The victory will pay his expenses for his next race in the February Orange Bowl Marathon in Florida, said Trujillo, the father of two children. His wife, Kathleen Trujillo, is a bank computer operator.

Trujillo has also filed for the Boston Marathon in April.

“Participating in wheelchair sports is good for your confidence. It helped get me back into the world,” he said.

After learning that 17 rare African leopard tortoises had been stolen from a member, Martha Young of the Orange County Turtle and Tortoise Club said, club members jumped into action by calling an estimated 100 pet stores and pet owners to alert them of the theft.

Within an hour the club learned the whereabouts of the tortoises and the two men who tried to sell them after they were stolen from a member’s backyard. The pair were arrested by police.

“Taking a turtle is like kidnaping a child,” said Young, of Fountain Valley, president of the turtle club. “People spend their lives raising them. We mean business.”

A 50th birthday can be a difficult transition, but when John Perry of San Clemente went to his car and found that friends had put a handicapped sign in his parking space, it didn’t bother him.

Nor did the fact that they decorated his office in black crepe paper and put a wheelchair there and then held a “roast” in which they talked about his “whine” list and his “wherehouse,” a long-discussed but still unbuilt warehouse for the Placentia School District, where Perry is assistant superintendent for special services.

He never gave a tumble to any of the gibes even though he was in the hospital from early morning. Nothing would have shaken him because his daughter, Lynice Rabun of Corona del Mar, had just given birth to his first grandchild.

“On my 50th birthday,” he said. “Can you imagine?”

How do you get the right person when a husband and wife work in the same office and both are doctors and both use the same last name? The secretary for Dr. Eleanor B. Saltzer, who holds a Ph.D., and medical Dr. Eugene I. Saltzer, both of Orange, found a solution. She identifies the wife as Mrs. Dr. Saltzer.

Acknowledgment--Steven H. Neal, 37, named director of the Donald Bren Events Center, which will open next October at UC Irvine as home for UCI’s basketball team.