The folks behind letsrun.com have announced a series of mile runs on May 13 in Ithaca, N.Y., including a professional race, called the Kip Keino Mile. The site says: “There will be masters miles, an open mile and quite a few corporate and club relays.” (Yet a day earlier, top masters milers will compete at the Fountain of Youth races in Oregon.) In New York, Kip will attend, and his main race offers prize money of $1,250 for first, $750 for second, $500 for third and $300 for fourth.” Any money for masters? I wrote to Weldon Johnson, a letsrun honcho.

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Dr. Ajay Kumar Dosaj of London is a big track fan. A Kenyan-born Indian, he has posted more than 7,000 times (as “eldrick”) on the Track & Field News message boards. He knows track inside and out, and isn’t shy about expressing his opinion. Now he’s gone the extra mile. He’s devised a commercial site getting prednisone called Jundo Predictor. What’s it do? Ajay writes me: “If you always wanted to know what a 57.50 / 2’10.00 is ultimately capable of for 1500m/1 Mile/3000m/5000m/10000m, then try it…” The site says: “From two races, the ultimate times for other distances can be predicted. With knowledge from the predictions, you can ascertain ultimate abilities at other distances.” Of course, when I plugged in my own recent 400 and 800 bests, it calculated my half-marathon potential. Ha! If only. Anyway, I asked xanax Ajay some masters-centric questions.

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The Penn Relays treats masters like royalty, and its events amount to an unofficial World Masters Relay Championships. This year, masters run at Philly on April 27-28. But masters majordomo Phil Felton says the entry deadline is April 6. So here is the entry form. Meanwhile, the regular entry deadline for Boston indoor nationals has been pushed back a day. It’s now tomorrow night. But you can enter as late as March 20 if you pay $10 extra per event.

The Koops’ site in Germany reports results from the Belgian indoor masters nationals yesterday in Gent. Edith Graff triple-jumped 9.12 meters (29-11 1/4) to shatter the listed W65 world indoor record of 8.68 (28-5 3/4) by Holland’s Rietje Dijkman in 2005, who was IAAF Masters Athlete of the Year in 2005. Among the men, ex-European champion Eric Roeske won the M45 400 in 52.23 and was second in the 200 in 23.84 (behind the 23.80 of Kay Schaafsma). Some race!

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Monica Pellegrinelli of Switzerland, preparing for the Eurovets indoor meet in Helsinki, lowered her own W40 WMA record for 60 hurdles yesterday. She clocked 8.66 seconds over the distance with masters spacing, beating the 8.71 she set at Linz last year. (She also has run the IAAF women’s 60 hurdles in 8.55, reports Pino Pilotto from Europe, who witnessed Monica’s 8.66 at “Aosta, an old alpine Roman town in Italy.”) Pino writes: “She said to me that she will go faster in Helsinki. She (ran) the regular . . . hurdles this year in 8.55 and said that she knows very well what it means when Gail Devers runs it in 7.86. She has very . . . great respect (for) Gail Devers.”

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M70 vaulter Gérard Dumas may not go high, but boy does he go long! After posting that he jumped 8 feet a month ago, I learned something awe-inspiring. Gérard’s fellow British Columbian, Roger Ruth, wrote me: “Gérard’s most outstanding vaulting datum, aside from his pre-eminent position as a statistician, is his unbroken string of years of competition. With the indoor mark you mentioned, he has had at least one mark in a sanctioned meet for 60 consecutive years . . . He vaulted 2.12 in 1948 and hasn’t missed a year since.” Today Gérard turned 72, and I sent him a note (subject line: Happy Birthday, Your Highness.”) I also asked some questions.

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Now it can be told. The recent world indoor record 4×2 relay team, made up of four 70-year-olds, benefited from PED. No, not drugs — performance-enchancing deity. The Rev. Dick Camp, No. 3 leg on the 1:54.05 team, writes: “Two things stand out in my memory: 1) Rich (Rizzo) asked me to lead the team in a prayer before the race. We asked that God would be honored in our performance; 2) as I completed my leg, I gave an extra lunge to be sure Bob Lida got the baton in our handoff, and I fell hard. The strawberries on my hip, shoulder, and knee are pleasant reminders of that extra effort.” We pray that Dick will be recovered for Boston nationals and certainly for Orono outdoors nationals. In his other life, Dick is executive director of A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, based in Freeport, Maine.

Every five years, this lady out in Georgia takes a break from her tax business and goes bonkers on the track. The result: a shredded record book. So it began a week ago as Phil Raschker, in her W60 debut, bettered two world and two American records at the USATF National Masters Indoor Heptathlon Championships at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Phil turned 60 on Feb. 21. Here are complete women’s results and men’s results. In the W70 age-group, Christel Donley of Colorado apparently set an indoor hep record of 5407 points, according to the decamouse site.

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Sub-4-at-40 aspirant Darren Worlock has replied to a set of questions I sent him via his Web site. He starts out by answering my DOB query: “My date of birth is 1st April 1970.” OK, April Fools Day. No problem! Lotsa people were born on that day. But then he proceeds to dance around questions about his PRs. He writes: “I can’t really answer your question of my all-time bests. All I can say is I have ran a lot faster in training than my race times show. I did a mile time trial at Whitchurch track in Bristol last summer with next to (no) real training behind me and ran 4:20. That’s the best track time I have ever had. In the past, I have had terrible trouble handling pressure on the track. Put me in a road race and I fly!! That is one of the many, many things I have to sort this time around. I know this goal is big, but people don’t know how hard this is for me, times what everyone else thinks x10.”

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Darren Worlock, meet Michael Marren. You’re two peas in a pod — even if separated xanax by The Pond. Darren — the 36-year-old British runner training for a sub-4 mile at age 40 — can’t begin to touch the ambitions of Marren, a 47-year-old Chicagoland athlete who has publicly declared that he is “the oldest runner in America training and trying to get qualified for U.S. Olympic Trials in 2008.” Michael’s event is the 800, and the “B” qualifying standard for that event, still to be set, will be about 1:48. The world age-group record for the M45 800? It’s 1:54.18 by Saladin Allah in 2005. In a strange exchange of email with Michael, I’ve tried valiantly to learn his all-time bests. He steadfastly ignores my queries.

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