Saturday: Suminami H&C, Yu Sasage

Today's route covered the Suminami History and Culture course, which is not that far from Yotsuya, but is relatively long. Started out with 6.13 km of moderate-paced running to get to the start (should have been a little shorter). The route covered the Yakushi Peaceful Wood Walk from Araiyakushi-mae Station (where I couldn't find a starting marker, which often there isn't) to Koenji Station, which runs past (P.) l'Abricotier, a shop worth checking out, and has a little path along whatever canal goes to Myoshoji Park.. From Koenji Station to Nishi("West")-Eifuku Station goes along the river (I'm not sure how to get Google Maps to show river names) Wadabori Park. There's a little construction, but the start is open and the detours are mostly obvious; however, the new map cuts into the park north of the baseball grounds, whereas the markers keep following the river for two more bridges, before heading south. Also, there is a spur to read the big map in front of the destination station which I missed on the way there but found on the way back. Part three is the Kanda River River Walk, which spends a lot of time along Kanda River, of course, which also has a lot of parks, all the way to Takaido Station. From there is Karasuyama Temple Village Walk, which actually runs along the raised expressway and the main surface street paralleling it, but has lots of parks and has a wide well-marked path along that part. This last walk ends at Chitose-Karasuyama Station, on Keiou Line. Total, I ran 16.69 km (including the unintentional detours, but not the construction detours, which weren't that big) slowly (though not that slowly). Lots of parks, rivers, and old temples. Mostly very well marked. I really like and recommend this course, although you do go through a lot of shopping streets around stations, so don't expect to race through it.

Conveniently, this put me near Yu Sasage, which is a priority "worthy" shop. This day's cake was Comparaison, which is a milk chocolate mousse cake with honey cream in the center and lemon, or at least lemon peel. I've had this basic kind of cake before (as far as chocolate mousse with lemon), but here the lemon was more intense, as juice bursts out when biting pieces of peel, and balanced delicious chocolate, despite being milk chocolate (so I still don't know why some chocolate cakes turn me off) and the base in the middle was a nut in chocolate disk (pecan, I think), a small layer of mousse above that, and a little cake disk above that go under the cream part. I mention the base, because I've had asymmetric lumps as the base of mousse cakes which did not impress me. This was 490 yen, which is fairly reasonable and was an excellent cake, so Yu Sasage remains a priority, even among worthy shops, since it could still theoretically turn out to be great. I did not, however, see any kind of fondant, so I wonder if the one I had before was just for Isetan, even if it wasn't marked that.

The trip back took longer than I intended. After eating my cake under one of the parks under the expressway (where the main surface road isn't right next to it), I followed the expressway as well as I could back to the H&C course and to part three. I had intended to get on Honan Dori, but turned too soon and end up on Inokashira Dori, which heads back toward the expressway (which dips south before heading back north, which is why I didn't walk to follow it. Well, extra distance is not terrible, so I followed Road 431 (I think it was Nakano Road) back in, going past P. Diamond and Concent, neither of which I know anything about or looked particularly special, although Concent was more a cafe and they had baked goods (and multiple customers). So the trip was 15.81 km at a slow pace.

That gives me a total of 6.1 km of moderate running and 32.5 km, so 38.6 km total, a reasonable expansion of last week's, but less than the 40 km that was my target maximum. Still, it was a busy day otherwise, so it was good to get that much in.