Sunday: Morning run to Gaien

First thing in the morning (for me, that is; actually, fairly late), after a brownie (did not want to come out of the forms: should have floured, as well as greased them, and made fudge rather than cake brownies; also, more chocolate), ran down to Gaien: 1.5 km fast to the startpoint, a 6'16''00 lap, which is 4.73 min/km, which is one level faster than "very fast". Rather than calling it "very very fast", I'll call it "racing speed". On a good day, I might be able to get one level faster (under 4.6 min/km). To the Lawson 100 by way of the Gaien Walk, I managed a moderate speed (despite the hills and stairs) over 2.4 km.

So my weekly numbers (rounding) are very slow, 36 km; slow, 20 km; moderate, 6 km; fast, 9 km; very fast, 3 km; and racing, 1 km. Comparing to last week, in total, 75 km, which is +9 km, first recording of "racing" speed, of +1 km, but very fast+ is -2 km, although fast+ is the same as last week. However, moderate (and so moderate+) is -9 km, so a big drop in faster running. Slow is +1 km, so most of my gain is in very slow: +18 km. My priority for next week is then to get in more faster running during weekdays (I avoided that this week because of the increase in distance). If I manage to get in another H&C run next weekend, I'll probably stretch it to 40 km, although the next one, the Suminami course, is not that long or far away (whereas the Fuchukokubunji one, which I just finished plotting, is both long, forked, and far away, so it would probably require around 100 km, and so may turn out not to be feasible; the last is also now done, Takao-Hachio, which is about 50 km to the startpoint and heads back, so it's about the same as Fuchukokubunji).

The cake today was from Ruysdael, at Shinjuku Station Keio. This was based on Sweet Sonobe (although not necessarily Keio Department store), but I should have followed my own Shinjuku Station rule, which is to only trust Isetan (though Takashimaya has some good cakes mixed in). This was Gateau Chocolat, for 518 yen, and was layers of chocolate mousse/cream and chocolate cake. I could tell from the beginning that there was something I did not like about it. It was not watery, but it was not rich. Perhaps it's a milk chocolate flavor. The result was sort of a American traditional chocolate cake taste, although that might just mean that it is high in sugar. It was not bad or poor in quality, and I can't say I disliked eating it, so I guess I'll say it was good and count this place as "good" enough to try again eventually, maybe, but they only had four cakes (the other there were strawberry of the shortcake family, a Mont Blanc, and a standard-looking raspberry mousse) and the end result was wanting to have great cake.


For the future, not sure whether I'll save that for later, since I still have 4 "worthy".shops I want one more cake from at Isetan, plus their visiting patisserie, but S'éveille, Pierre Hermé, and Toshi Yoroizuka are the priorities among the great shops. If I get off work exactly on time this week some day, I might try to run fast enough to make it to S'éveille, although that's a longer round trip than I've done on a weekday, so this might not be the best week for it.