Kevin Castille crushes own M40 American record in 10K at Stanford
Tom Bernhard graciously informs us: “Kevin Castille is originally from Louisiana and now lives in Nicholasville, Kentucky, but he may now consider Northern California to be his second home. For the second time this month and for the fourth time in 13 months, he has set an American 40-44 age group record here. On 4/7/2013 he destroyed Paul Pilkington’s M40-44 10 Mile road record of 49:34 with a 48:56 (net time) at the SacTown Ten Mile Run in downtown Sacramento. Last night, he took down his own M40-44 10,000m mark of 28:57.88 set at the 2012 Payton Jordan Cardinal Invite with a 28:53.54 at the 2013 edition of the same meet in Palo Alto. Full results of the heat are listed here. The listed WR for M40 remains the amazing 28:30.88 by Finnish Olympian Martti Vainio back in 1991.
Kevin, shown the Carlsbad 5K several years ago, loves California.
11 Responses
great job Kevin!
Amazing, stay healthy and keep knocking those records down
I think we should be drug testing for these records so that we know they are legit.Matti who holds a Masters record was busted for doping in his open days. I want to believe that guys running this fast are doing it clean, but I have my doubts.anybody that wants an American or World record should have to agree to a USADA testing within hours of a record-then we can be sure that we are not removing someone deserving of the record from the record book. Otherwise these super fast times maybe disputed
Mark, I know Kevin and although I can not prove he is clean, I know he works very hard and is a full time runner. Kevin has run races where drug testing was avaiable (like indoor nationals). Too bad we can not drug test some of the old records on the books.
Cheryl, just because you know someone doesn’t mean their clean. We all like to think they are and if we know them we have a bias in their favor. There have been some extremely fast times run lately and there have been people caught. All I am saying is before anyone can claim a record they should be tested if they want the record. Otherwise the records don’t mean a whole lot-we don’t know if they are real. They do out of competition tesing and there are USADA testers all over the place that could test someone within 24 hours of a record.
I agree with Mark.
Mark,
I believe that there was testing at the indoor nationals for all the winners, and Kevin took the 3000m and 1500m, so was presumably tested there.
If you look at times in his mid-to-late 30s (including a 28:49.11 10k at 36) and know that he only started really consistent high-level training relative late in life, there is very little to be suspicious of.
When I read more about Martti Vainio, I am shocked that his over 40 times are accepted as records. Even when the testing methodologies were more primitive, he was caught multiple times. If that happened, would Kevin’s time be the WR?
I agree about testing, especially at such a big meet.
Distance runners using EPO (or its variants) won’t get caught by testing on race day. EPO leaves your system within a couple days, even as its performance benefits remain for weeks. A combined HGH-EPO regimen would be undetectable unless random, out-of-competition testing were implemented. I know that there are talks about doing this with masters distance runners, and I would applaud the implementation of such a program. Remember that Eddy Hellebuyck – the first American ever caught for EPO, whose masters records have finally (mostly) be wiped from the books – only got caught because he made the mistake of running fast enough to get placed on the USATF open list of athletes subject to random testing.
As for how to pinpoint what masters might or might not be using PEDs, I think a far better indication of possible use is race volume, rather than race times. I don’t mean running lots of shorter races in okay times. I mean doing things like running a marathon one week and then a masters world-class half-marathon the next – as Eddy Hellebuyck was able to do. Open runners can’t recover from a marathon (or similar tough effort) to perform such feats. If masters runners are doing it, that’s a good place to start testing. Another tell is when masters start matching previous masters PRs at shorter distances on the way to longer race records – again, as Eddy did in his record-setting road 10K of 29:08, where he ran his splits in 14:32 and 14:36, even though his best 5K in the previous couple years was 14:36 (he ran 14:13 the week before his record 10K, but that was from the increased PED use).
As for Kevin Castille and other fast masters, I think we should refrain from making public accusations. PED use is such a horrible thing for our sport that associating it with runners (without proof) simply isn’t fair. It’s one thing to grumble to our friends and running peers on a run or over dinner after a meet. It’s another to put someone’s name out there for all to see as a possible PED cheat. Because you can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
Thanks Peter. You hit right on the head!
I agree that there should be drug testing for those who break World and American Records. The open athletes are subject to the Passport system where their blood is stored and any changes in their blood profile raises a flag for further investigation into identifying the drug used. Lately there were numerous athletes caught some going as far back as the 2004 Olympics. With the random testing of the top master athletes and using the passport system, it may cut down on the suspicion of athletes who work very hard and are naturally gifted.
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