Longtime Runner Gray Proving to Be of a Different Age

So, how do you bring up the topic of advancing age with an athlete?

Usually, delicately . . . waiting for the right moment and treading lightly.

But Johnny Gray, 37, is fast off the track too.

“I’m the old man running the 800 meters,” he says.

He is not frowning. He is smiling.

Tread lightly?

How about stomping on it with the full force of his running shoe? This guy loves to talk about his age. He would probably like to see a gray hair or two.

Two years ago, at a callow 35, he declared: “I’m the grandfather of the 800 meters.”

Pretty soon, the grandfather from Agoura will be the great-grandfather of the 800 meters. If form holds and Gray remains injury free, as he has most of his career, he stands a decent shot of making his fifth consecutive Olympic Games.

For Gray, a bronze medalist at the 1992 Olympics, the countdown to Sydney, 2000 will resume on Saturday at the Los Angeles Invitational Indoor track meet at the Sports Arena.

Already, he is off to a promising season, running 1:48.03 at the Commonwealth meet in Boston on Jan. 24. It was his fastest season opener.

“I think the shape I have this year, [it] would be no problem to go under 1:48 if I push myself and we have that crowd behind me,” he said.

“It’s amazing to run that fast at 37. Period. Let’s be honest. Maybe no one at 37 has ever run that fast.”

Gray’s longevity does not particularly surprise his coach, Merrill McGee, who has been with him since his days as a Crenshaw High school student.

“He [Gray] would probably be the one [I would think] would last this long,” McGee said. “He has the most efficient workouts. He doesn’t try to kill himself. That’s one of the reasons--you don’t want to strain instead of train.”

McGee has been by Gray’s side all these years, and oddly enough, their relationship started by a strange coincidence. Gray, then a junior, was sitting in the stands with his older brother observing workouts at Crenshaw. McGee watched his team practice and didn’t like what he was seeing.

“I got upset because they weren’t running well,” McGee said. “I said, ‘I’m just going to get somebody else to run.’ And Johnny and his brother jumped up and said, ‘We want to run!’ ”

Gray finished that season, and McGee noticed he was smooth but not very strong. The next season, his time dropped from 2:06 to 1:51.

McGee said they’ve always been able to work out any differences.

“We were born on the same day,” he said when asked why the partnership has been successful. “We’re Geminis, so we’re both flexible.”

Now, the forces pushing Gray, in addition to the Olympics, are competing against the latest wave of runners--or is it the second or third wave?--and the prospect of running against his two older sons, who are 14 and 12.

“The youngsters motivate me--runners like Al Royster, Wilson Kipketer--they motivate me to hang in there,” Gray said. “It’s a great pleasure of mine to run against them because I can recall Kipketer at age 15 or 16, asking me to sign his shoe, to autograph his shoe.

“Now, here he is, the world-record holder. It’s just great to hang around sports and be competitive because you get so much joy out of different things.”

His peers once were the Mike Boits and Alberto Juantorenas. Now, Gray is the only member left from that 800 class.

“I think it’s pretty unusual,” he said. “The oldest runner I can recall running the 800 was Alberto Juantorena from Cuba. He was 36 and running 1:45. That was incredible at the time. The only thing that slowed him up was he broke his ankle at the world championships and he retired after that particular incident.”

The only concession Gray has made to 37 is to quit playing basketball, saying his body can’t recover from hoops as quickly. That means his days of one-on-one against his son Johnny, a point guard on Agoura’s junior varsity, are a thing of the past.

Does the son have the foot speed of the father?

“Not to me, I don’t think he’s fast,” Gray said, laughing.

His 12-year-old, Jared, is resuming running and basketball, having taken a year off after being found to have diabetes. Gray, in fact, got the news from his wife, Judy, just after he arrived in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics.

“I said, ‘Forget the Olympics,’ ” Gray recalled. “I wanted to go home. There’s a lot of things that we go through that people don’t know. They think you’re there and everything is OK.”

Gray stayed, and finished seventh.

Gray’s world has settled and now he is able to move forward at his own fast pace.

“I’m 37 going on 38 and I ran 1:44.5 with a hamstring injury last year,” he said. “People tend to look at me as slowing down because of my age. I just want to show them at 37, that if you dedicate yourself, age is not a factor.”

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Meet at a Glance

* What: L.A. Invitational Indoor track meet.

* When: Saturday. High school division starts at 11:15 a.m. (shotput and discus at USC’s Cromwell Field, 9 a.m.); open portion starts at 6 p.m.

* Where: Los Angeles Sports Arena.

* Miscellany: Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. . . . It is the 38th year of the event, all at the Sports Arena. . . . More information: www.lainvitational.com