Pictured: After Ms. Kastor won the Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon recently, perhaps they should spell it “PasaDEENA.”/

She’d only just turned 40 three days prior, but American women’s marathon record holder Deena Kastor schooled a lot of younger women athletes in her first race as a Masters runner on Sunday morning, Feb. 17, at the Kaiser Permanente Rock ‘n’ Roll Pasadena Half Marathon benefiting CureMito!

Kastor, who used the race as a training run for her first-ever appearance in next month’s ASICS Los Angeles Marathon, handily won the 13.1-mile race with a time of 1 hour, 12 minutes, 57 seconds.

“It was a great day in Pasadena!” Kastor told The Sheet. At the 10K mark, Kastor was on pace to break the American Masters’ best for the half-marathon, 1:11:50 held by Philadelphia’s Colleen DeReuck, but Pasadena’s hilly environs proved too formidable.

“My time was definitely slower than I would have liked, and in Mammoth you have hills, but those were pretty tough,” she said. “But I got through that race, I’m recovered, I’m feeling really great and have been putting in lots of quality training. Now the hills of LA await!”

In yet another score for Mammoth, taking third in the Women’s category was Mammoth Track Club runner Lindsay Tollefson, 26, who turned in a 1:20:21. “Lindsay has been training with us part-time, and it was awesome that she ran so well,” Kastor enthused. “It’s always nice to share the awards podium with friends.” 

(Photo: RunningCompetitor.com)