Forest Park Cross Country Festival

Back on September 8 I ran the Forest Park XC festival open race for the 3rd year in a row. This was the first race I ran after we moved to St. Louis. I improved a little bit over my first outing last year and I was hoping to improve a little bit more this year.

The race is short and fast. It’s 4km in length (about 2.5 miles). This was the first race I ran after Howl at the Moon and it was quite a shock to the system to go from racing 8 hours to racing 14 minutes. I was totally unprepared. I took it easy for 3 weeks following Howl, then I did one moderately hard training run before this race. Somehow my Howl fitness carried me through. I finished in 6th place, but I ran the same course 17 seconds faster than last year (when I felt better prepared).

I’ll take it.