A warm, clear Sunday morning greeted runners as NYRR hosted this season’s first of five cross country races, the Henry Isola Cross Country Classic. The four-mile race returned after being cancelled due to weather in 2011. The event drew more than 200 harriers to the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park, fully restored after four years of construction.

Starting at the north end of the park, near 251st Street, the race called for two loops that took harriers across the Flats, along the Cow Path, into the woods, and up Cemetery Hill, arguably the toughest hill in the entire park.