The great Deena Kastor, now 41, showed she’s still got it – and how! – as she won the women’s race in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Dallas Half-Marathon, Sun., March 23, in a brilliant 1:11:57!

If you follow distance running at all, you’ve surely heard of Deena Kastor, who lives and trains at altitude in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. She holds the U.S. records in the marathon (2:19:36) and half-marathon (1:07:34), and she won the bronze medal in the women’s marathon at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece! 

Although Kastor’s age suggests her fastest years as a runner are now behind her, she still has serious competitive goals. One of them is to break Colleen de Reuck’s U.S. Masters half-marathon record of 1:11:50.

She missed that record by a mere seven seconds in Dallas, but she did set two other U.S. Masters records (10 miles and 20K) on her way to winning the half-marathon. Not a bad outing for a lady who is true royalty as far as American distance running is concerned.

Furthermore, her role on the American running scene is only expanding and diversifying as she gets older. She’s now president of the Mammoth Track Club, which is developing a corps of elite marathoners, coached by Deena’s husband, Andrew, in the California mountains. She was also part of the television broadcast team covering the recent Asics Los Angeles Marathon and in that capacity was able to expound upon the breakthrough third-place performance of Lauren Kleppin, who’s a member of the Mammoth Track Club.

Deena Kastor, who’s cut back her mileage about 20 percent from what she used to run, had originally planned to do a half-marathon in New Orleans on Feb. 2 but had to skip the race due to the flu.

At Dallas her biggest challenge was neither health nor rival runners, but the chilly weather on a somewhat windy day. Undaunted, she just powered through the course, finishing more than six minutes ahead of D’Ann Mineo of Dallas, who ran 1:18:28 in finishing second. The U.S. Masters records Kastor set en route to her victory were 55:13 for 10 miles and 1:08:11 for 20 kilometers.

The men’s winner at Dallas – not to forget the men! – was Julius Kiptoo, 36, of Kenya, who ran 1:06:01 to finish three seconds ahead of  Colby Lowe, 24, of Southlake, Tex.

Enoch Nadler, 28, of Richardson, Tex., finished third in 1:06:58. 

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