Hoping to qualify for the U.S. Olympic trials, Kevin Beck tunes up in Roanoke

After 25 mph winds and 30-degree temperatures whipped through the Roanoke Valley on Friday, local runners didn't know what to expect for Saturday's annual Cox Communications Star City Half Marathon in Roanoke.

They were pleasantly surprised.

Sunny skies, brisk 40-degree temperatures and mild wind at 10 to 20 mph framed the ideal day for pounding the pavement in South Roanoke during the 13.1-mile race, one of the largest in Southwest Virginia. There was a separate 5K race during the half marathon.

"After the first couple of miles, you get warm," said Jacob Pack, 20, who finished second in a half marathon field of 267 male and female runners. "The wind was brutal in some places but in other places there was a tail wind."

Pack crossed the finish line four minutes behind champion Kevin Beck, 32, of Roanoke. Beck took the lead early in the race and led by at least four minutes until the end. He finished in 1 hour, 13 minutes, 56.3 seconds.

It wasn't Beck's fastest time, but that didn't matter to him. The race was a training run as he gears up for his 11th marathon, The Huntsville Times Rocket City Marathon in Alabama in three weeks.

Beck, who hiked the Blue Ridge trail from Asheville, N.C., to Roanoke in August, said he hopes to qualify for the U.S. Olympic trials in the marathon. He ran a 2:24 marathon in Boston last year.

Virginia Tech graduate student Molly Fruin, 24, the first female to finish, was just happy to complete her first half marathon.

Dressed in black spandex, a black long-sleeved shirt and headband, Fruin sprinted under the red and white Star City Striders finish-line banner in 1:31.21.

"Mile four to mile eight is all uphill and at mile seven, I was dying," she said, catching her breath. "But I didn't feel like I slowed down much."

Julia Van Antwerp, 23, of Lynchburg, finished four minutes behind Fruin in 1:35.45.

The steep hill on 27th Street in Southeast Roanoke, which is near the race's eighth mile, was the toughest on the rolling-hill course, according to many runners.

Robert Bruce, 39, who was farther back in the pack, said he traveled to Roanoke from Maryland just for the hills.

"This one looked like it had some good hills, and I'm trying to do some races in different places," Bruce said as he stretched his legs after the race. "I figured I could see the Blue Ridge at the same time."

Other runners may have had the same idea. Among the group were racers from West Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

The half marathon was first run alongside a marathon in Roanoke in 1984. It became its own event in 1987, when the marathon was discontinued, race director Barry Brewer said.

In the 5K, Bonnie McDonald of Roanoke took first for the women in 19:27. Thomas Maguire of Roanoke won the men's race in 16:14.