Materia and mounts questions

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

I'm still trying to figure out how to use materia. From what I got from the materia quest on lvl 19, I can convert it from curtain equipment and then use it to enhance other equipment. But when it comes to binding them together, it seems like I have to have a crafting job raised to a certain level first. I have some stuff that could use a level upgrade, but so far, materia seems hard to understand.

Also, I just got my chocobo mount. My question is are mounts faster than the players sprints (they seem to be at the same speed)? In fact, all the mounts seem to run at the same speed as far as I can tell.