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Poet Dylan Thomas wrote that famous stanza in the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
American distance runner Kevin Castille may have read that and taken it to heart.
Castille, masters runner and former crack dealer, has now been banned for four years for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The test result and ban came years after many in the running community had questioned his performances.
He tested positive for 19-norandrosterone, a metabolite of the anabolic steroid nandrolone.
He was going to appeal the ban, however, backed off at the last minute.
He was a strong high school runner in Louisiana but disappeared from the sport for a while. He ended becoming a crack cocaine dealer. he was busted and imprisoned in 2001. At the age of 29, he began to compete again. In 2004, he ran a 10,000-metre personal best of 28:49.11 at the Stanford track in Palo Alto, CA to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympic Trials.
In 2017, at the age of 45, he ran an almost identical performance, in the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth, clocking in at the time of 63:58. He finished fifth overall behind only Kenyans and within 53 seconds of winner Evans Kirui.
Castille ran nearly as well in a 10K road race with a finish time of 29:04 that year.
In 2019, at age 47, he a 10,000m event in 30:00.02 in Lafayette, then followed that up with a road 29:58 in Charleston.
Some people just can’t age peacefully or rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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