Snyder native qualifies for Boston Marathon

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  • Candace Matthies ran a half-marathon in San Francisco, Calif., in June 2019. Matthies qualified for the 2021 Boston Marathon.
    Candace Matthies ran a half-marathon in San Francisco, Calif., in June 2019. Matthies qualified for the 2021 Boston Marathon.
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Candace Matthies of Snyder qualified for the 2021 Boston Marathon with her performance at the Houston Marathon in January, finishing with a personal best time of 3 hours and 15 minutes.
Matthies has run five marathons, 15 half-marathons and many 10k races. 
She competed two years on Snyder High School’s cross country and track teams before her family moved to Sonora. She was a regional qualifier in both sports during her high school career.
“I’ve always been a runner, ever since I can remember,” she said.
Matthies’ passion for running never disappeared, even after the births of her two sons.
She resumed running after the birth of her first child and reached her goal of qualifying for the 2018 Boston Marathon by finishing the 2017 Eugene Marathon with a time of 3 hours, 17 minutes.
“When I qualified last time, they actually moved the time down five minutes after that year,” Matthies said. “For my age group, it was 3:35, and the spots were filling up at, I think, around 3:32. So people were qualifying but weren’t getting in, so they went ahead and moved the qualifying time down five minutes. Now my age division is 3:30.”
While her personal best thus far is the 3:15 she ran in Houston, Matthies said that her goal at the time was to break three hours, but she was battling a cold on the day of the race.
“About halfway through I was really thinking about quitting,” she said. “I was seriously contemplating getting an Uber. It was like mile 13 and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I still have a little over 13 left.’ I was thinking I could run in Austin instead, but I didn’t want to go through that whole thing all over again. I finished in 3:15, got home the next day, went to the doctor and found out I had the flu. So I couldn’t be that frustrated with myself.”
Matthies said that for the past year she has been training six days a week, with two days dedicated to speed, three easy days and a distance day.
“I ran a half-marathon in San Francisco at the very end of July, so summertime was a little bit hectic,” she said. “I had to wake up at five in the morning and run and then go to work all day, and then I had the marathon in January.”
Matthies said that she enjoys running for the quiet time that it offers.
“I know people think it’s crazy, but it’s a stress reliever,” she said. “It’s like my therapy. Just to go out and run, to clear your head. A lot of people wonder what I think about when I run over three hours. During a race, my mind doesn’t wander too much other than trying to keep the pace I’m running at, but during training it’s just therapeutic.”
Matthies said that her goal for years had been to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but when she ran it in 2018, it wasn’t exactly what she had expected. That year’s raceday had what were said to be the coldest temperatures in 30 years and the worst weather in the marathon’s history.
“When I ran the 2018 Boston Marathon, honestly, it wasn’t a very good experience,” she said. “I was injured in my training, and I worried the whole training about how I was going to do just because I wasn’t able to run as much as I needed to. Then when I got there, it was the worst weather in the history of Boston, and it was pouring down rain. It was so bad. So I want to go back and actually be able to enjoy it a little bit more.”
Though the weather was less than ideal, Matthies finished the race 2,535th out 11,604 females and was finisher 9,393 out 25,759 total participants. Her average pace was eight minutes and 13 seconds per mile, and she finished with a time of 3 hours and 35 minutes, which she’s looking to beat at the 2021 Boston Marathon.
While qualifying for the Boston Marathon was her goal, it’s hardly her finish line.
“Now that I’ve qualified, it’s like, what’s next? It’s hard to think of what goal I’m going to have after Boston is over next year,” she said.