Finally, running, back to Frédéric Cassel for Tarte Chocolat a la Caramélia

No rain, no knee pain, and no cold (I hope), so I ran today!

It's been so long (well, more than a week) that I had forgotten what it feels like, so I went with that and tried running in a way that I knew was different: I ran like a girl. Or at least, I ran like a former girl group (AKB48) member who just started as the third host on a running program that I decided I should watch. She did a marathon 4 years ago but hasn't been running. She was preparing for a 10K (well, or she couldn't be a host), but didn't want to get big muscles on her legs. Actually, that is reasonable, because top long-distance runners don't have thick legs, because that is not necessary or efficient.

So she met a trainer (at the Gaien course, naturally because it's a marked route and there is big open space in the middle for training) who photographed her form and told her that she was taking too big of steps in the sense of the height of her toes. I've heard this before: think of stepping on a tuna can when you run, because you don't want your toes far off the ground when your heel hits. Otherwise, you are putting on the breaks, which uses a lot of muscles for stopping and then restarting. The other thing was lean forward, which they didn't talk about, but showed.

So today I didn't try to pump my legs at all, I just leaned into it and tried to keep then rolling fairly effortlessly. I wasn't sure how far I could do it, so I broke it up before the biggest hill going out to Ginza, but I ended up faster after that point than before, both very fast and almost racing speed on the hill part (it goes back down, of course). In one way, it is effortless, because I'm not trying to go fast at all, I'm just trying to do it at all (I have no basis for comparison running like this). At the last part of that 5.2 km fairly continuous run (there are a couple lights that you can't make at a reasonable speed), I didn't feel tired and was going as fast as I probably went the whole run, but on the other hand puffing very hard. When I stopped at the light just short of Ginza (from which I walked to Ginza Mitsukoshi), then I could feel that I had used some muscles.

Going back, I did 4 km very slow because I was somewhat tired, that kind of running doesn't work with carrying cake and having the weight of my jacket in my backpack, and my left knee called attention to itself at about the same point as my previous run, though not as bad, not increasingly bad, and not hurting during the walk home from the 100 yen shop (although I still iced it for a bit). Also, no headache, so the runny nose I have left is just from pollen and the fact that I woke up 90 minutes early this morning.

The cake was my eighth from Frédéric Cassel, and I'll give the name a try: Tarte Chocolat a la Caramélia for 756 yen. The website leaves off the "Chocolat" that was on the in-store card. This is a baked tart with milk chocolate ganache (and a small amount of pecan pieces) under caramel chocolate ganache cream. It was definitely excellent. I like chocolate tarts and this was a good one.