Tate wins 10k Halifax Blue Nose race

Courtesy The Chronicle Herald

Significant wins for men's and women's 10K racers

Bryden Tate and Leonie Balter left their marks on the Blue Nose 10-kilometre race Sunday.
 
Tate won the race in dominant fashion for the second straight year, breezing to victory a full two minutes ahead of the runner-up, and Balter celebrated one of her final days in Halifax by topping the female division.
 
"I have had a lot of injuries so I'm not training that well but it was good enough," Balter, a Dalhousie University exchange student from the Netherlands, said of her effort in the Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon event.
 
The 21-year-old, who recently completed her masters degree in neuropsychology, finished 11th overall with a time of 37 minutes 41 seconds.
 
That was nearly five minutes off Tate's pace, after the defending champion from Heatherton, Antigonish County, accomplished both of the objectives he set in his return to the Halifax-Dartmouth route.
 
"The goal was to come back and try and win again," Tate said.
 
"I took it hard right from the beginning, hoping to break everybody else and see if I could hold on. It seemed to work today."
 
It worked well enough that the 20-year-old cruised across the finish line after spending 32 minutes 55 seconds on the course.
 
That gave him a cushion of two minutes one second over Brad Piggott of Dartmouth, who placed second in 34:56.
 
"I won by 42 seconds last year so I was hoping I could try to beat that this year," he said.
 
Tate broke away from the field early in the race on a brisk and breezy morning. He said a couple of other runners set a blistering pace to start and he remained conservative until they began to slow down, then picked up his own pace.
 
"The first two K just blew by," he said.
 
"I looked up and the sign said 2K and I didn't even realize I was that far in already and then you hit the hill, like the bridge and the hills, and it hurt but I knew I had to power through it. Once I was over the bridge, it was all downhill after that."
 
Matt Piggott of Halifax finished third in 34.57, just 8-10ths of a second behind his twin brother Brad.
 
Nicolas Wood of Great Village, Colchester County, was fourth in 35:42 and Corwin Trottier of Cole Harbour fifth in 36:09.
 
Balter followed about a minute and a half later, winning the female division in her Nova Scotia racing finale. She's leaving Tuesday to return home.
 
Balter, who described herself as a slow starter, normally runs five-kilometre distances and was competing for the first time in the Blue Nose event.
 
She said she started well off the pace of the leaders but remained within sight of them and gradually began to catch up before taking the lead while crossing the Macdonald bridge.
 
"Second quarter, I keep them in my eye and then I worked slowly through them."
 
Jullien Flynn of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., finished second to Balter among females with a time of 38:11 that was good for 15th overall.
 
Emily Hamilton of Cole Harbour was third in 38:40. Hamilton was the runner-up in the 2012 women's half-marathon and is a three-time winner of the women's 10K title.
 
Jessica Belliveau of Quispamsis, N.B., finished fourth in 39:46 and Aly Cox of Halifax was fifth in 41:53.