Shinagawa-Ikegami H&C course; Ryoco

Did another history and culture course today, although I should ｐut "course" in quote marks, because if it forks, it's not a course, it's just a grouping. I'll probably never do these as "courses" again, but for the first time it was okay.

Starting point of the course is Shinagawa Station (where I can find no marker). I took the usual path south through Meiji Gingu Gaien and then the Aoyama Cemetery, but rather than continuing down past Hiro Station, I turned east and took the diagonal road through the 6-way at Sendaizakaue (?) and connected up with the Shiba-Takanawa H&C route.

The first part of the Shinagawa-Ikegami course is the Shinagawa Guest House Walk. Not only at the station but following the main road, there is no signs indicating it as an H&C route. You have to know to stay on the east side and leave the main road, but cut right to find the big sign showing where to go, although it's sort of blatantly pedestrian friendly, so it looks like where you would want a course to be. This is a 2 km road that is basically two lanes wide but they've made it oneway with a single lane down the middle and used paving stones and a lot of new retro decoration to make it a nice shopping street. Very convenient going, but was a little crowded coming back around noon. Also, the map plates of the first markers are all broken, but since it's a straight shot, that is not really a problem.

At the end, the route forks. Part 2 is the Magomefunshi Walk. I'm not sure whether the route on the ground is as twisty as the official 2010 one that I mapped: I don't remember that many turns just west of Ring Road 7 around Magome East Junior High School, but then I don't remember the school either, so maybe I did detour around it. The route is fine though, so I'll probably go back and confirm someday, if I'm still walking that far. Something is wrong with my leg movement, and I was getting pain from the second hour.

There is some sort of competing route overlapping this and Part 3 associated with specifically famous writers that has a similar name, so you have to watch that you don't get distracted. Since it's just local, I'm not that interested in it.

Part 3, which ends this prong of the fork, is the Honmon Temple walk. The on-the-ground route that I followed takes you down just short of the railroad and main street before bringing you back past Ikegami-Honmon Temple at one point, whereas the 2010 posted route takes a detour. Since the road gets way too much traffic with not enough space for walking, I want to try the new route next time.

Even though I was having some pain problems, I stuck to the original plan and reverse my steps exactly rather than take a shortcut to the other prong of the fork. Part 4, which is the Oi　Nagisa Wood Walk, is the opposite of the other walks: it's short, flat, goes by modern stuff, like the Tokyo Flea Market, a huge park, and a truck transport hub area (just, you cross a bridge from the park and you're immediately at a train station that ends things), and has just two turns, both right angle, right terns. The park, which is most of it, seems nice runs along a river, but I stayed on the wide, empty sidewalk rather than enter the park and use paths in there.

Then I retraced my path all the way back to Shinagawa station. Total time for me to do the entire course twice, which I estimate to be 29.2 km, was 3:20'59'' and it took me another 49'04'' to get to Shinagawa Station and 1:03'53'' to return from there via Ryoco and Lettre d'Amour (carrying cake most of the way). I should mention that it come to 45.4 km, so given my right ankle, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to run tomorrow (but I've investigated another H&C course, which would be 15 km out, I would take more direct route back to the start of the course, but then swing down to Mitsukoshi and Viron, if I could; might have to take the cycle out instead.

Food was a mikan before I left, a croissant at the end of Part 3 from Sunmerry's for 151 yen, which was good, and another one from Lettre d'Amour for 220 yen which seemed great when I was eating it, but the aftertaste was a problem. The second croissant was lightly sugar glazed, making it sweet, but then I had too much of a sweet aftertaste that then turned to salt. Next time I'll get one and take it home and eat it with a beverage rather than after 4:30' of running and find out whether it was great.

The cake was from Ryoco: Chocolat Vanille for 560 yen. It was excellent, although I became distracted by the fact that I couldn't cut all the way through it without the bottom layer being smushed by the middle relatively hard chocolate layer. Since most of these complicated layers have the same problem and you just need to turn them on their side to stabilize them, I shouldn't complaint. This one claimed and seemed to follow through with having enough vanilla to compete with the chocolate. Still, I've had better separate chocolate and vanilla cakes, so I'm not sure that I need this combination, although I wouldn't avoid having it again.

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