SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Olympian Takes Part in Special Run

Olympic bronze medalist Tonie Campbell can run the high hurdles in 13.17 seconds, the fifth-fastest time in the world. But Wednesday he slowed down his pace to run with Erin Havlena, a first-grader at Del Obispo Elementary in San Juan Capistrano who “runs” with the aid of an arm-powered wheelchair.

“Erin is a champion of spirit,” Campbell told the girl’s classmates after completing a mile jog with her around the Del Obispo track. “She’s out there doing something a little more difficult, something I don’t think I could do.”

Erin, who has spina bifida, uses a special wheelchair to propel herself around the track with her fellow classmates. The children have been running around the track each day before school as part of a geography assignment where the goal is to log 2,726 miles, the distance it takes to reach Washington from San Juan Capistrano.

Children plot their mileage on a map of the United States and try to simulate the life of a marathon runner by checking the local weather or learning social facts about each town in which they stop.

The extra laps put in by Campbell helped Erin’s class reach Beaver, Utah, and another class reach Big Rock Candy Mountain, Colo. But by having celebrity runners, teachers at Del Obispo also hope to call attention to the need for sports programs for their disabled and special education students, said Frank Lenaghan, the teacher who supervises the run each morning.

“We want to call attention to spina bifida and to encourage more involvement in the Special Olympics, particularly in South Orange County, where there hasn’t been many places to have one,” Lenaghan said.