Are there any trails in the St. Louis area (by trails I mean with no concrete/cement)? Im gonna be starting to get back into running after a stress reaction and would much rather run on some soft trails then a football field for long periods of time.
Where are you located? West County has Queeny Park, which is about 4.7 mi of some sort of easy to run on rocks, if my memory serves me correctly.
Forest Park has been gradually replacing segments of the perimeter running path with beautiful gravel (it's like running on a baseball infield). It's not continuous yet, ~50/50. Other than that I'm not aware of anything within city limits. Seems like they've paved over this whole godforsaken town.
Here's my input for North County...
In Florissant, there is Little Creek Nature area. It has about 2-1/2 miles of trails. I used to cover them all in both directions for a total of 5 miles.
If you enter off of Dunn Rd and want to park inside their gate, you need to check in at the office. Most of the time, I just ran into the area and went straight to the trails. You can also enter on the back side through Dunegant Park (which is where I would park if I drove there).
Sioux Passage County Park also has a few trails in the very back part of the park along the Missouri River (Google maps calls it the Car of Commerce Chute). The best time is when the water level is down and you can run in the sand of the Car of Commerce Chute. Plus, Sioux Passage is home to the best XC course in the area, so it's fun to run around the grass on the park, too.
Queeney Park is good, as is Castle Rock State Park in west county.