Louis Craig "Lou" Castagnola (born July 5, 1936) was an American long-distance runner who competed for Virginia Tech in cross country and track before specializing in the marathon throughout the 1960s.
[2] Lou Castagnola attended Virginia Tech, where he competed in cross country and track.
[5] He was also successful in shorter distances, and on May 20, 1967, he won the men's 2-mile at the DC AAU track meet in 9:14.0.
After having just run his career-best 2:17 marathon in Boston, Castagnola's vertical leap was only 11.5 inches, which surprised researchers.
[5] After three years of relative inactivity since he stopped running, he was tested by Costill again in 1971, and in spite of his vVO2max capacity having deteriorated by more than a third, his vertical leap had increased to 20.3 inches.