Kevin Castille, the masters champion by 36 seconds at the USATF National Club Cross Country 10K on December 12, will run the Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon in Florida on Sunday. If he manages a 1:05:00 or better, Castille will, at 43, be the oldest male starter at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles on February 13. (The oldest female qualifier thus far is Colleen De Reuck, the 2004 trials winner who is now 51. She ran a 2:39:22 marathon in 2013.)

“I’m just trying to put myself in a safe zone,” Castille told Runner’s World, regarding his decision to go to the Jacksonville race, six weeks out from the trials, rather than the Houston Half Marathon on January 17, which is the last date to qualify. Castille silenced any suggestion that he can go to Houston if he doesn’t qualify in Jacksonville. “It’s not going to not happen, I’m not even going to put myself in that situation of ‘if I don’t make it,’” he said. “I’m fit enough. My head’s good.”

Jacksonville is known to be a fast course, and 45 of the invited elite men are heading there hoping to be added to the roster of trials qualifiers.

Castille could have been a qualifier already, but for a couple of confusions and distractions not of his own making. He was second at the USA Masters Half Marathon Championships in San Diego in May in 1:04:45. That course, however, had an elevation drop of more than 3.25 meters per kilometer, which meant that it was not record-eligible and could not be used for qualifying purposes.

But the course’s “ineligible” status was not made clear on the USATF’s website for the masters championships, nor on the local organizing committee’s page. In any case, as USATF Director of Events Jim Estes told Runner’s World, Castille’s name “was on the [published] list of qualifiers for a little while until somebody caught the fact that the course doesn’t qualify.”

Castille was also one of the recipients of an August 27 letter from USATF meant for trials qualifiers, discussing arrangements to be made for their trips to Los Angeles.

“There were some people who got [the letter] who probably shouldn’t have,” USATF Men’s Long Distance Running Committee Chair Ed Torres told Runner’s World. Torres said that he had to call his friend Sara Slattery, who ran in the open competition in San Diego in 2014, to tell her she hadn’t qualified for the trials. Slattery, the 2007 Pan American Games 10,000 gold medalist, will also race in Jacksonville on Sunday.

Castille said he was never notified by USATF that he was not a trials qualifier.

“It really pisses me off. It’s nonprofessional. It kind of makes me angry,” he said. “It’s not something they should put me through.”

Castille, who lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, regrouped and ran the Peachtree Road Race 10K in Atlanta, winning the masters title on the Fourth of July. He set his marathon PR of 2:20:58 at Twin Cities in 2013 and had plans to race there again in October. The goal was to get a trials qualifier with a 2:18 or better. (Earlier this month, the standard was eased to 2:19.)

That trip to Minnesota didn’t materialize. “I had a lot of things going on,” Castille said. He has a full-time job as a personal trainer at a health club in Lafayette. He’s also a part-time cross-country coach at St. Thomas More High School in Lafayette, where the second of his daughters studies and runs. “I wasn’t able to tie up all my loose ends.”

Castille said that a threatened Black Lives Matter protest to disrupt the finish of the Twin Cities race was also a factor in keeping him away. “There was so much controversy for me. I thought, ‘What the heck’s going on?’” Fearing disruption, “I was like, ‘I’m just not going to do it,’” said Castille.

Castille was an outstanding high school runner and had a promising start at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette when he got involved in selling (but not using) crack cocaine. A lost decade followed, and after one arrest in 2001, he spent 21 days in jail. A detailed account of that period in his life can be found here.

Resolving to turn his life around included a return to running, and Castille started to regain form quickly. He qualified for the 10,000 at the 2004 trials, but he did not finish that race.

In 2012, entering the masters category, Castille ran 28:57 for 10,000 on the track, a U.S. masters record that still stands. Other personal bests, including a 48:57 for 10 miles, came in 2013.

“Right now, I’m better than I was when I first turned 40, just across the board,” Castille said. “Which probably means I’m better than I’ve been pretty much all my running career.” He may be physically fresher than his American masters rivals because of all the years he missed, and Castille sees a psychological advantage to his situation as well.

Most of his rivals, he figures, ran in the 13:30s for 5,000 and in the low 28s for 10,000 in their prime. “I didn’t do that,” he said. “Once you get a little bit older you have to adjust your expectations. But I’m not chasing a young Kevin Castille, because there was never a 13:30 Kevin Castille. I was a 13:57 guy. At 43, I feel like I can [still] run a 13:57.”

Since 2004, Castille’s coach has been Matt Lonergan, the husband of 2000 Olympian Marla Runyan and a coach at Northeastern University in Boston.

“We’ve been together forever and he does a great job with me,” Castille said. “When you’re training somebody, whether they’re 5 or 55, you have to know something about that person, what they can and cannot do, will and won’t do, and more importantly, what works for them.

“In this business, people bounce around, from coach to coach, place to place,” said Castille. “I have Matt, and that’s good enough for me. I won’t trade Matt for a little bit of gear.” (Castille does not have a shoe contract.)

Castille hasn’t done a marathon since that 2:20:58 in 2013, “just because I was never big on marathoning,” he said. “They take a lot out of you. I live in Louisiana, which is really not marathon-conducive.” He preferred to “wait until I was pretty much done with everything on the track” before focusing more on the marathon. "I just kind of put it on the back burner until now.”

But heading into 2016, making it to the marathon trials is important to Castille.

“I’m not going to make enough money to continue supporting myself doing the track races, because that doesn’t pay anything." he said. “Even at my age, if you do decent at the marathons, you can support your running habit by a little bit more.”

It could be more than a little bit longer for Castille. He’ll be 44 in March, and often gets asked how long he’ll keep up at close to his current running level.

“Sometimes we as men do crazy things and push the envelope a little bit further than we need to,” he said. “But I haven’t been having any health issues. I’m not reckless.”

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