47.5 km with Nishiarai-Takenotsuka History and Culture course and P. L'Automne

Rain in the morning, so I waited an hour before it at least was thin enough that I could not see the splashes in the street and someone was not bothering with an umbrella. It still rained light for a few hours.

Had an okay run. Went very slow the whole way, which was 47.5 km. I was very tempted (after 4 hours running) and willing to extend the run to go back to L'Abricotier, since they are a top priority in a sense and I would just have to change where I turned to go by them, but I finally talked myself down into sticking with the plan. Left knee was not happy most of the time, but doesn't seem any worse and I don't feel anything when I'm not running (when I rested for a little, it felt completely fine and didn't really get more than annoying for the whole run). I'll try more complete rest for 48+ h and taking anti-inflammatories for the next could days and see if things go any better.

Still trying to figure out my next run. I'm busy on the weekend, so I'm taking a Monday off (also, to catch up on shopping, sleep, laundry, or whatever I'm low on after being busy). If I did them in order, after this one should be Shimabata H&C course, but that one goes by La Rose Des Japanais, which is a far shop I really want to get back to but is closed Mondays. Instead, maybe, I'll jump ahead to Sunamachi-Kasai-Mizue, which is less far but long. Originally, I planned to visit a shop I remember as being good but haven't posted on, but then the run would be little long for my next run, if I try to keep my increases to 10%, so I think I'll skip that cake shop, which is not a high priority and not so far by itself. I can pick up cake when I come back through Ginza or go by Isetan later. With that shop out, I save 3 km. Of course, then I'll have to think once again about how to increase Shimabata H&C course run, which I already added visits to Chiba and Saitama prefectures to stretch it to 49 km.

Today's target, the Nishiarai-Takenotsuka History and Culture course, comprises the Shimane-Rokugatsu Temple Tour Walk and the Ikou Temple Town Walk (according to my translation of the Japanese names), as shown on my map and is just over 7 km by my calculation. It's okay. There are few nice temples to go by and much of the last bit is on a stone paved sidewalk along an artificial irrigation channel (which sounds better than drainage ditch). I don't really need to come back up here, though, probably, but I haven't planned that far ahead.

The cake was at L'Automne, which I remembers as good without really evaluating it here. It's a nice shop, spacious, modern, and elegant. There are three two-person tables for eating in, which I did, and they didn't make me buy a drink (milk or yogurt would be great, but I think they just had tea and coffee), though had some reasonable cake and drink specials. I stuck to just the one cake, though. Not sure how that works out for them. They have to wash dishes, but save a box and bag. The custard and fruit was a nice touch, but the glass of water was more important. The cake is call Collage, for 540 yen, and is a thick layer of chocolate mousse, a medium layer of pistachio mouse, and a thin layer of raspberry between, covered in chocolate with a crunchy nut base. And it was definitely good. The raspberry is gelatin, but the mousses are without I think, or at least I remember being told that about their cakes on another day when I said it would take 2 h to take some mousse cake back home (back when I was doing long walks). Everything was good, and sometimes chocolate mousse is not for me, so I'm actually satisfied (it was better than today's Seven-Eleven donut, which was a Sweet Cream Donut, I think), but there was not really anything to make it excellent. Still, they're nice, so I'll look forward to getting back there some time.