Milers Probably Not Up to the Challenge : Track and field: Somalia’s Bile and Romania’s Ivan don’t think records will fall at Sports Arena tonight.

The world’s fastest male and female milers, Abdi Bile and Paula Ivan, may or may not be the featured attractions at the 31st annual Sunkist Invitational track meet tonight at the Sport Arena. Depends on your point of view.

To the track purist--for whom an indoor mile is an amusing little race to be tolerated, not venerated--Sunkist’s $100,000 Challenge Mile may be more challenge than even promoter Al Franken intended.

He has offered $100,000 to the man or woman who can break the world indoor record in the mile--3 minutes 49.78 seconds for men and 4:18.86 for women. But is it possible for the athletes to have attained the kind of race sharpness required for such times in the first major meet of the indoor season?

Bile, the world champion at 1,500 meters from Somalia, has raced only once this year and had not even planned an indoor campaign until the Challenge races--the Meadowlands Invitational Feb. 9 has a similar bonus--were announced.

Ivan, likewise, had not contemplated much of an indoor season. The Romanian, in fact, had not thought much beyond the bloody revolution in her country last month. Training, and certainly competing, were afterthoughts, what with the street fighting in Bucharest, where she lives.

Neither runner, in discussing the races this week, has expressed the belief that any records will fall in the race. At least to him or her.

So much for the purists. But for the sports fan who admires aesthetics and cares less for times, Bile and Ivan promise to provide plenty to admire.

Bile (pronounced BEE-lay) is a smooth, slender runner. Conservative, he is likely to slingshot from the back of the pack and run away from the field. He did that at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where he beat mile world record-holder Steve Cram by bolting away at the halfway mark in the 1,500 meters. Bile ran the final 400 meters in 51.4.

By way of comparison, Diane Dixon holds the world indoor record of 52.2 at 440 yards. She will race that distance tonight. Watch Dixon, who is an excellent sprinter, and imagine Bile carrying that speed at the end of a race four times longer.

Ivan is Bile’s stylistic opposite. Where Bile is careful and thoughtful, Ivan is bold. In the 1,500 meters at the Seoul Olympics, Ivan demoralized her competition. With each lap she left the pack farther behind.

She won the gold and ran 3:53.96, without the help of a runner on her shoulder, the second-fastest 1,500 ever and an Olympic record. She finished seven seconds ahead of the second-place runner.

Then showing the versatility that has earned her the label of the world’s best active female middle-distance runner, Ivan won the silver medal in the 3,000 at Seoul.

The meet begins at 4:15 with high school events, and 6:30 for open events, but the mile races have been, predictably, scheduled near the end of the open program. The women’s mile is scheduled for 7:35 and the men’s at 8:20. The meet will be televised live at 6:30 on ESPN.

Bile attended George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where he was a two-time NCAA champion at 1,500. He said his attitude toward the indoor season is less than cordial.

“It takes a lot away from the outdoor season,” he said. “You cannot train all that long. You just lose the motivation. I just wanted to run indoors to keep in shape. To be in condition. I don’t take the indoor season very seriously.”

Having said that, Bile quickly added that standing on the starting line in competition is a great motivator. Don’t rule out the allure of a big payday, either.

“What would you do for $100,000?” he said.

We may find out tonight.

The boys’ national high school mile features the best bloodlines in the meet. In the race are Martin Keino, 17-year-old son of Kenya’s great miler Kip Keino; Jama Bile, the 17-year-old brother of Abdi Bile, and Abraham Aden, the younger brother of Jama Mohamed Aden, a Somalian 800-meter runner who attended Fairleigh Dickinson University. Also in the race is Bryan Dameworth of Agoura High, the national high school cross-country champion.

In other events, Greg Foster and Tonie Campbell will renew their rivalry in the 50-meter hurdles. Foster has won this event at Sunkist seven times.

The pole vault field is loaded with the usual veterans. Among the Americans are Mike Tully, Joe Dial, Earl Bell and Dave Kenworthy.