Men's Half Marathon: Mccandless Dominates from Wire to Wire

• Tyler Mccandless, 1:06:51 (5:06/mi) — held the men's lead at every checkpoint and posted the fastest split on the HALF→11.05 Mile segment, turning a race into a time trial.
• 6:10 gap to 2nd place: Ben Payne's 1:13:01 was a strong run, but Mccandless was never threatened.
• Tight battle for 3rd–6th: Noah Perkins (1:19:06), Santiago Patino (1:21:34), Ben Bruce (1:21:46), and Cameron Garrelts (1:22:00) were separated by just 2:54 across four spots.
• Ben Bruce's late surge: Running 7th through the first two checkpoints, Bruce climbed to 5th by the finish — posting the 2nd-fastest split on the 11.05 Mile→Finish stretch to get there.

Tyler Mccandless, 38, out of Fort Collins, turned the men's half marathon into a masterclass in front-running. He led wire to wire — holding the top spot at every checkpoint — and finished in 1:06:51 at a 5:06/mi clip, a pace that left the rest of the 656-man field well in his wake. He also owned the fastest split on the HALF→11.05 Mile segment, meaning he wasn't just surviving the back half, he was accelerating through it.

Ben Payne, 43, from Honolulu, was the clear runner-up with a 1:13:01 (5:34/mi), holding second place from start to finish and posting the second-fastest split on that same HALF→11.05 Mile segment. The 6:10 gap to Mccandless was decisive, but Payne's consistency was its own story — and at 43, his 5:34 average is worth noting against a field that skewed considerably younger.

The race for the podium's final step was where things got interesting. Noah Perkins, 27, moved from 4th after the first checkpoint up to 3rd by mile 11, finishing in 1:19:06. Behind him, Santiago Patino (1:21:34) and Ben Bruce (1:21:46) were separated by just 12 seconds at the line — but they got there differently. Bruce was 7th through both early checkpoints before unleashing the 2nd-fastest split on the 11.05 Mile→Finish segment to climb to 5th. Cameron Garrelts (1:22:00, 6th) and Gabriel Tom (1:22:10, 7th) rounded out a lead pack where 2nd through 7th were covered by under nine minutes — competitive racing well behind a winner who was simply in a different gear on a warm, humid morning in Poipu.