Mahon, 39, qualified for multiple U.S. Olympic Trials on the track and in the marathon, in which he has a 2:13:02 personal record.
He talked about their performances Sunday in the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon: Kastor winning in a race record 1:09:43 and Hall finishing second in 1:04:08.
Hall is preparing for the Boston Marathon on April 19. Kastor will run in the London Marathon on April 25.
"We knew she (Kastor) could break 70 minutes, and that was the goal coming in here. She probably could have ran 68 something, but she felt the wind a fair amount out there and kind of being by herself. She was racing with the guys as much as she could, but you always get a little more fired up when you have women out there. All in all, a good day. I think she's definitely on track for a good year.
"She's looking and training now like she did when she won Chicago (2005) and set records (U.S. marathon best 2:19:36 in 2006). The pop in her legs and she no loner feels like every workout is injury assessment day. It's like training is going well and moving on to the next one. It's definitely a different mindset."
On training Kastor at age 36: "You're managing intensity and energy and motivation. We try to hone down and focus on what are the most important things we need to get done here. If it's in the weight room, compartmentalize that a little bit and get the most bang for our buck there as well as on the different runs. She kind of knows now what are her workouts she really has to hit then the other ones are in maintenance mode. Whereas if a you're kid, you try to do everything hard. We're getting smarter with that and combining time management to get the most out of it."
On Hall finishing behind Canadian Simon Bairu, who ran 1:02:47: "We came in here knowing he wasn't in great shape. He's been training serious for just the past 3-4 weeks. We weren't learning for anything magical here. It was more about let's just get out hard for the first half of the race at a pace we want to be doing later. It was just to get the body tuned up for that. He's not doing big volume right now. He ran this race mostly because we were piggybacking a lot of things and doing some media appearances for Nissan (www.mastertheshift.com for Hall workout tips) and different things. We did this as a hard tempo run but didn't come in with the mentality of we're trying to race here. It was a lot different for Ryan than Deena (in goals).
"It was OK. He ran a little slower than we were thinking he would run. With Ryan, when he does race, he really brings a lot of focus and intensity to it in terms of the big races. With a race like this, he doesn't bring the same mindset so he doesn't have the capacity to compete because he hasn't done the mental prep for it. This guy (Bairu) has been training for half marathons so he's more amped up to run a race like this than he was."
Looking ahead to Boston, where Hall was third last year: "He's definitely where he should be with training. It's not like we have to go back and re-write training. He's more geared toward we're going to look to run a bigger race where he puts it on the line more come end of February or during March to get him really ready for Boston. This was more let's come in and get in a hard run without any big strings attached."
Taking some prize money out of the marathon to use as appearance fees for Hall and Kastor was well spent because of what they brought to the race promotion-wise and in support of American runners.
There were 27,307 finishers Sunday (out of more than 32,000 entrants) in the seventh Rock 'n' Roll Arizona: 5,691 marathon, 21,460 half marathon, 148 ultra 50K, 8 wheelchairs.
Earlier this month, there were 33,964 finishers at Walt Disney World, which runs a half marathon (17,090) on Saturday and marathon (16,874) on Sunday.
Numbers are certain to jump for the original Rock 'n' Roll event in San Diego, which is adding a half marathon for the first time on June 6, so RnR Arizona could lose its spot as the world's largest same day marathon/half marathon.
The Phoenix City Council recently extended a contract with Competitor Group to continue RnR Arizona through 2013, which will be its 10th running. P.F. Chang's also is continuing as title sponsor as part of a renewal that began with this year's event.
"The reasons for our renewal is the same reason we got involved in the first place," said Bert Vivian, P.F. Chang's co-CEO. "We make our home here, and we wanted to participate in an event that would not only hep the Valley from an economic standpoint but also be a great participatory event for Valley residents and for visitors. It's obviously turned out to be bigger than anybody thought it would be when we first started, and we really are thrilled to continue our support of it particularly in these economic times."
Vivian said the brand recognition between P.F. Chang's and the race while mostly anecdotal is significant. "Most importantly we fully support that lifestyle and just want to be a part of that," he said. "Externally and internally for our own people, we all agreed it really is the right thing to stay involved with Competitor Group, which is fabulous to deal with.
"Frankly, we'd have a hard time seeing somebody else's name on this race."
MGD 64 had a big presence in its first year as RnR Arizona official beer sponsor. It awarded a gft card for free MGD 64 for one year to every male and female 64th-place finisher in every marathon age category.
Legal drinking age runners had the chance to taste samples of the 64-calorie beer at the Heatlh & Fitness Expo and at the finish line festival beer garden at Arizona State's Sun Angel Stadium, where Everclear was the post-race music headliner.
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