THE YEAR OF THE OLD SPORT : OVER 60 AND RUNNING STRONG : Friends Gene Harte, 61, and Bob Watanabe, 60, Are Two of the Best on the Masters Track Circuit

Contrary to what one might gather from reading sports sections and watching television, not all athletes retire to the sidelines in their 30s.

Some of them keep right on competing. Many, in fact, never compete at all until their 50s or 60s. This is a story of two track and field athletes, both in their 60s, two of the best in the world, two for whom the fires of competition still burn.

In 1981, Gene Harte broke his leg while running in a track meet in New Zealand. It was an uncommonly bad break, one that required a series of operations.

The surgeon was Bob Watanabe.

“In 27 years of orthopedics, Gene’s injury was as bad a break as I’ve ever seen,” Watanabe says.

After four operations involving screws, metal plates and bone grafts, and months of rehabilitation, Harte was back on the track competing in 100, 200 and 400-meter races in weekend Southern California masters track meets. And in one of his first races back, he defeated Watanabe in a 200-meter race.

“I should’ve loosened a few screws in that leg,” Watanabe joked after the race.

Quite a pair, these two. They’ve been close friends for 10 years, when they began competing against each other. They do business together. Harte is Watanabe’s patient. Watanabe is Harte’s client. A graphic artist, Harte has designed a logo and a brochure for a new arthroscopic camera system Watanabe is manufacturing.

Warm friends? You bet. Yet each would rather beat the other than anyone.

“My rivalry with Gene keeps me going,” said Watanabe, 60. “I worry every day about losing to him. It’s the thought of losing to Gene that makes me find the time to get to my workouts. Without Gene, it wouldn’t be the same.”

Said Harte, 61, in a separate interview: “Bob keeps my fire lit. I love our competition. My goal is to beat him, and that’s the whole thing for me. By ourselves, it wouldn’t be the same.”

Harte enjoys telling the story of a weekend meet a few years ago when, at the start of a 200-meter race, Watanabe said: “I don’t feel well at all, I’m just going to stride through this one . . . save myself for the 400.”

Says Harte: “He was sandbagging it, and I bought it. He shot off the blocks and ran a lifetime best. To this day, I never believe anything he says on meet days.”

Harte and Watanabe. They’re among the best masters sprinters in the world. “Right now, there are about six men in the world in the 60-to-64-year-old bracket who can break 13 seconds for 100 meters, and Gene and Bob are two of them,” said publisher Al Sheahen, who keeps tabs on masters track for his magazine, National Masters News.

“Only about nine guys over 60 have broken 60 seconds for 400 meters. Bob has done 59.84 and Gene’s best since he turned 60 is 60.6.”

Neither were standout college athletes. Harte, in fact, says he was a mediocre track man at Occidental College. Watanabe was attending San Luis Obispo High School when Pearl Harbor was attacked. His family, like thousands of other Japanese-American families, was rounded up and shipped to a World War II detention camp. Watanabe was sent to Poston, Ariz. Afterward, he sprinted for UCLA and came close to qualifying for the 1948 U.S. Olympic trials.

Over 40? Over 50? Do you look back with melancholia to long ago weekends, when you were young and strong, fueled by the fire to win? Or to days that never were?

Listen to these two.

It’s not too late.

GENE HARTE

“My college track career at Occidental College in the late 1940s wasn’t much. I ran the 440 and 880, but never reached my potential. I had a groin injury my entire college career, the kind of injury today’s trainers could take care of in a couple of weeks. But mine never healed.

“I became the kind of runner the coach counted on for second- and third-place points in the close dual meets with Redlands and Whittier.

“I didn’t get back into track until 1975, when my sons talked me into entering a masters meet. I was in good shape, though. For years, my graphic design company, Harte, Yamashita & Forest, had Carnation as a client. I spent a lot of time in their seven-story building at Wilshire and Highland, and I never used the elevator in that building. For 30 years, I ran up and down the stairs.

“My first 400 in 1975, at age 50, was 64-flat. I figured that wasn’t bad, for coming right off the street. Now, my best 400 time is 60.6. Bob’s best is 59.84. I joined the Corona del Mar Track Club then, but now I run for the L.A. Valley Athletic Club. There are about 65 of us in the club and we work out at L.A. Valley College. Bob’s in our club, but he lives on the west side and works out at UCLA. I live across the street from L.A. Valley College.

“Competition keeps us all going. If you have no competition, you become a freak. That’s what happened to Payton Jordan (ex-Stanford track coach who dominated masters track for 20 years.) He was so good, he had no challengers. He began losing interest, and finally quit.

“You make sacrifices to compete at our age, if you take it seriously. I mean, Bob and I coming off a turn, going into our kicks, trying to thrash each other, that’s what I love, the competition. You need a challenge to keep you going, because it isn’t easy, staying in shape at our age.

“It isn’t like when I was 21. I work much harder at staying in shape than I did then. I’ve never forgotten a quote from Don Schollander (1964 Olympic swimming champion). He said, ‘In training, you work your way up to the pain level, then you begin your workout.’

“Masters track has a huge dropout rate. The injury factor discourages so many, and it’s a waste because I believe 90% of those guys don’t train properly. Stretching is so important at our age, yet so few do it enough. See, from age 20 to 60, your muscle structure undergoes changes. Some muscle groups tend to overpower others. Your hamstrings, for example, can overpower your quads. Starting out, you need to develop your weak muscles. I’ve spent 10 years doing that.

“Another thing guys our age do that they shouldn’t is train on a track too much. It’s hard on you. I run on hills and the beach, and never with a watch.

“And too many masters guys run every day. There’s no way a 60-year-old can do that. Your body needs recovery time. I run three times a week--Saturday, Monday, Wednesday. I stretch five days a week, lift weights on Tuesday and Thursday and do nothing Friday.

“Long distance runners our age have a big edge over us. They go to those weekend morning 5K or 10K races, run, and they’re on their way home by noon. But we have to drive to places like Santa Barbara, San Diego or Palm Springs and wait all afternoon for our events. It can be a burden on families.

“Masters track has all types. Some guys are trying to recapture something, like Jack Greenwood of Denver. He’s 60. He came in fourth at the 1948 Olympic trials in the 400 meter hurdles. All his life, he’s lived with that, coming so close to making the Olympic team.

“And you know what? He’s doing it. At the last nationals, the national record for his age group in the 400 was 58.4. Jack ran 57.65. In that race, Bob was second in 59.84 and I was fourth, in 62.38.

BOB WATANABE

“I’m probably the only 60-year-old you’ll meet who can’t wait until he’s 65.

“I plan to retire from my orthopedic practice then, and I’ll have more time to train. I’m sure I’ll be running better times at 65 than I am now. See, when I’m retired I’ll have more time to train. Now, I can barely find the time to work out at all.

“Also, I’ll be able to weight train. All world class sprinters are strong, powerful guys. Look at the upper bodies of Carl Lewis, Ron Brown and Bob Hayes. Harvey Glance can bench press 350 pounds. Look at me. I weigh 135.

“For me, weight training is the key, because my start is my strong point. With more strength, I’ll be faster.

“I could always run fast. I ran a 10.3 for 100 yards when I was in high school in Arizona, when we were in the camp. I ran a 10-flat after the war at Wayne State University and a 9.6 and 21.4 at UCLA. I tried, but didn’t qualify for the 1948 Olympic Trials at the Coliseum.

“Now, my best marks are 12-flat for 100 meters, 25.9 for the 200 and 59.84 for the 400. I’m one of three guys over 60 to break 60 in the 400. The others are Jack Greenwood of Denver and Rudy Valentine of New York.

“I love running the 400. It’s the ultimate anaerobic exercise, which means you must make do with the amount of oxygen you have in your body when the race starts. The 800 is slightly more aerobic, which means your oxygen intake capacity becomes a factor.

“Physically, the 400 is an awful race. Any world class 400 meter runner will tell you that. The reason I like it so much is that it makes the 200 seem easier to me.

“I’m still disappointed over the 400 meters I ran at the national masters championships at Randall’s Island, New York, last July. I led in the race until the last 20 yards, when I completely tied up. Greenwood passed me and set a new world age group record, 57.65. “But my big rivalry is with Gene. Even though I’d rather beat him than anyone, I really admire the guy. His broken leg was awful. He shattered it. Now, I could see a guy working his way back to where he could jog. But to come all the way back to compete on his level, it’s an amazing achievement. There are professional athletes who couldn’t have come back from the kind of injury he had. I wrote an article about his case for a medical journal.

“Gene, Valentine, Greenwood and I are all hoping we’re healthy in November of 1987. The World Masters Championships that year are in Melbourne, and we think we could set a world record in the 400 meter relay, if one of us doesn’t drop a baton or pull a muscle.

“One of the rewards of masters track and field is seeing older, out-of-shape guys come into the program and enjoying themselves, getting back into shape again. I’ve seen a lot of overweight, out-of-shape guys come in and really enjoy preparing to compete again. In every case, they’ve lost weight because of the workouts.

“Your perspective is slightly different at our age. In college, if I had a poor performance, it would devastate me for a week. Now, the disappointment is tempered a bit by the knowledge that not many guys in the world my age can do what I’m doing.

“Injuries are a big problem. There are a lot of dropouts in our sport. Remember when you were 18 and a sprained ankle kept you out two, maybe three weeks? At 60, you sprain an ankle and you’re out for the season. It takes at least three times as long to recover. Tissues lose elasticity. Even after healing, there’s a greater tendency to wind up with a stiff joint. That’s why stretching is so important for older athletes.

“When you have running injuries at age 50 or 60, there is an increased chance of developing tendinitis, or arthritic conditions. A lot of injuries occur in training, and it’s because a lot of guys my age don’t use their heads.

“They run too much on the track, instead of grass. And they run too hard and too often. Ideally, masters runners should be undertrained rather than overtrained. The alternative is an injury, and that brings you down to zero. “I do a lot of interval training, and very little sprinting in my workouts. I try to maintain flexibility as best I can. In the meets, I try to get a lead in a race and just stride home hard enough to win. The only time I go all-out is at the nationals.

“A lot of people ask me: ‘You’re a doctor, is this kind of activity something a 60-year-old should be doing?’

“Of course it is, providing they do it properly. It’s a great way to get your weight down, by getting in competition shape, and experiencing the mental high of knowing that fitness-wise, you’re in the upper 5% of the population in your age group.

“And you don’t have to win to feel good about yourself again. I have a friend my age, Wayne Ambrose, who comes in fifth and sixth, sometimes third. But his attitude is perfect. He’s always saying: ‘How many guys my age can even do this?’