The official Website of Professional Distance Runner Tyler McCandless. Tyler was an All-American for Penn State University in the 10,000m run in the spring of 2010. Tyler’s best 10,000m time was run at the 2010 Big Ten Championships where he ran a personal best time of 29:15. Tyler quickly showed promise as a professional road racer with a 46:04 15k at the Utica Boilermaker (claiming top American-born honors), a top American finish at the Buffalo Subaru Chase 4-Miler, and a 1:05:02 San Francisco 2nd Half-Marathon win and course record. While in college, Tyler was a Penn State cross country team captain in the Fall of 2010 when the Penn State team qualified for the NCAA Championships for the first time in well over a decade. Tyler moved to Boulder, Colorado in August of 2010 to train with other professional athletes. On September 12th, Tyler won the Denver Half-Marathon and on Oct 10th finished 8th at the BAA Half-Marathon in 1:06:06 on a challenging course.
In Tyler’s debut marathon at the California International Marathon, Tyler placed 6th overall with a time of 2:17:22. Tyler’s time is 1:38 faster than the Olympic Trials qualifying standard of 2:19:00 and he is ranked 40th out of the marathoners who have qualified for the 2012 Olympic Trials. A length description of the race, including some of his split times, can be found here. Tyler’s second competitive marathon was Grandma’s Marathon in June of 2011 where he sliced another few seconds off his PR, recording a 2:17:09 for 11th place.
After two second place finishes to training partner and Mizuno teammate Patrick Rizzo at the USATF Colorado 10k and Half-Marathon Championships, Tyler ventured to the island of Kauai for the $15,000 speed challenge for breaking 2:30:00. Tyler won the race in a course record 2:23:19 and shared the prize with Michael Wardian who ran 2:26 to break the speed challenge. Two weeks later, Tyler ran a personal best at the Rock N Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon with a time of 1:04:59. On Dec 4th, Tyler finished 3rd in a competitive international field at the Dallas White Rock Marathon. Tyler is now preparing for the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston, Texas.
2011 Kauai Marathon Champion and Course Record (2:23:19)
Currently, Tyler is sponsored by Mizuno and Athletes Honey Milk. Tyler is also supported by GU Energy, EVOL Foods, Julbo USA and Chia Chargers. Tyler is represented by Caroline Bierbaum of Empire Athletics Management (empireathleticsllc.com). You can reach Tyler by e-mail at tcm5026@gmail.com.
Aside from athletics, Tyler was a standout student in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University where he received both a BS and MS in meteorology in only 5 years. In addition, Tyler has already passed the PhD candidacy exams and was the 2010 Penn State recipient of the Astronaut Scholarship (picture below). Tyler is also the recipient of a NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship, and is current on a leave of absence from graduate school to focus on the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials. Tyler has one article published in the Journal of Computers and one article in revisions with National Weather Digest.
