Trujillo Won’t Mail In Effort Today : Marathon: At 35, she has something to prove in Long Beach race.

On Wednesday, Maria Trujillo learned how far her marathon fortunes had fallen, courtesy of the U.S. Mail.

The letter from Nike said basically, “We have sponsored you for a long while and we try to sponsor the best, but we will no longer sponsor you. Have a good life.”

In a business of what have you done for us lately, she has not done enough, “so I’ll just have to do better,” she said.

That could begin today in the Long Beach Marathon, which she won in 1991 and in which she finished second in 1992.

Or not.

“I’m not in such great shape,” she said. “I have had a little injury, a toe injury, and had to take a month off from training. You can lose your conditioning very quickly.”

Trujillo, who lives in Marina, Calif., finished third in Boston in 1990 in 2 hours 28 minutes 53 seconds. That is the best time represented in today’s Long Beach women’s field.

She also ran for Mexico in the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, but at 35 her ability may be waning, and she admits, “I only want to run another year or so and then take some time off, maybe to have a baby. You can only do that so long, you know, and you can come back and run again in your 40s.”

But in that year, she has some plans. Trujillo, who became a U.S. citizen in 1988, qualified for the Olympic trials when she ran a 2:37:24 in the Chicago Marathon in November. And she will be on the U.S. team in the World Cup Marathon in Greece in April.

But to win today’s race, which begins at 8 a.m., she will have to deal with Maddy Tormoen and Kathy Smith of Huntington Beach, a winner in the Las Vegas Marathon in 1993. Tormoen has run a 2:43, Smith a 2:41. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry about a 2:40 runner,” Trujillo said. “But I think I have to worry about 2:40 right now because I am not in top shape.”

The men’s field could be a fast one, though the heat and smog could assure Rex Wilson’s course record, 2:12:27, set in 1993, will be safe.

Nivaldo Filho of Brazil ran 2:10 in winning the 1990 Rome Marathon and 2:13 in finishing fourth in the California International run in Sacramento last year. His personal record is the fastest in the men’s field, but Juan Samuel Lopez, from Mexico but living in Denver, ran a 2:12 in winning the Oaxaca Marathon in Mexico last year. He also was fourth in Houston, in 2:14.

About 2,000 marathon runners are expected to compete for an $8,000 first prize for men’s and women’s winners.