Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald
Ashley Ryer tops among women
Bryden Tate's dominance continued in the 10-kilometre at the Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon.
The runner from Heatherton, Antigonish County, completed a three-peat Sunday winning the men's 10K for a third consecutive year.
Meanwhile, Seabright's Ashley Ryer easily won the women's race, the morning after celebrating her bachelorette party. It was her first time running the 10K.
"I'm getting married in June so I thought OK I'll do a 10K," said Ryer, who crossed the line in 38 minutes 18.3 seconds, over two minutes ahead of runner-up Chloe Austin of Dartmouth (40:18.8).
Tate, who clocked in at 32:51.8, accomplished an objective he set in his return to the Halifax-Dartmouth route. He shed nearly four seconds off his 2013 pace.
Unlike last year when he broke away from the pack early, the 21-year-old said he had a couple of runners setting the pace for much of the race. He stayed with them until the final stretch.
"I definitely run a faster time when there's people with me," said Tate, who just finished his third season with the St. Francis Xavier cross-country and track and field teams. "It's more exciting rather than just running alone. It's kind of boring by yourself.
"Having stiffer competition this year than last year is always good. Last year, I pretty much ran from start to finish pretty much by myself. This year I was with two guys until about the 5K mark so that's when I decided to pick it up. But that was good because they kept pushing me.
"It was a faster time than last year so I'm happy with that."
Tate finished about 33 seconds ahead of runner-up Nicolas Wood of Great Village, Colchester County. Wood, who was fourth in the 10K last year, was second in 33:25.1.
A trio of Halifax runners rounded out the top five: Russell Christie (33:45.8), Graeme Wach (36:00.7) and Stuart McAdam (36:11.6).
Tate completed a successful season with the X-Men. At the Atlantic university track and field championships in February, he captured gold in the 1,000m and 1,500m events and silver with the St. F.X. 4x800m relay team. He helped lead the X-Men to their first ever AUS title banner.
"I've been doing a lot of speed lately," Tate said. "My indoor season I would train for the 1,500 and the 1,000 so I've gained a lot of speed from that. In mid-March, I transitioned to cross country training where I built up my mileage. That gave me a little bit of speed out there."
Tate uses road races like the Blue Nose and next month's Johnny Miles Marathon in New Glasgow as off-season training.
"I try to do road racing about once a month just to keep myself racing," he explained. "It gives me something to look forward to all summer. This is basically off-season training, getting ready for cross-country season in the fall."
Ryer, too, was a varsity standout while at Dalhousie and Saint Mary's. In her final year at SMU, she captured the 2009 AUS women's cross-country title.
She took her masters at Dal and ran track with the Tigers. She earned silver in the 1,000m at the 2012 CIS track and field championships.
"Varsity running definitely helped me prepare for this," said the 26-year-old, who's doing a post-graduate fellowship with Capital Health. (She was running with a team put together for the Dartmouth General Hospital Foundation.)
"Although I graduated two years ago, I still train. Cross country is pretty strenuous so just having that experience of racing helps with any sort of race like this. You have to get out, do some races and put yourself in some crowds in order to get that feeling.
"It was really tough. I wasn't expecting all the hills," she added. "When you get over into Dartmouth, I was really shocked with how many hills. I really had to pace myself. And it was quite windy on the bridge."
Halifax's Ashley Chisholm was third with a time of 40:48.2, ahead of former Olympic paddler Karen Furneaux of Waverley (42:35.5) and Moncton's Kendra Diodati (42:43.0).