11 km Evening Run in Shinagawa, Tokyo
After recovering from my first marathon, I am starting to train for a new personal best at an upcoming half marathon. This is the first step, intervals.
Length: | 11 km |
Elevation: | 231 m |
Route type: | Out and Back |
Pavement: | Road |
How to get there: | The run starts very close to Shinagawa station, which can be reached by various metro lines. Or you are staying in one of the hotels close to Shinagawa station. |
How to shorten/extend run: | Shorten: Since this is an out and back run, you can pretty much turn around at any point. Extent: You can continue running along the Meguro river, you can run back and follow the Meguro river in the other directs for a good 2 km. |
Water stops: | There are none on this route, and I am not sure how easy it is to get water for free in the convenience stores along the route. But you can bring a few hundred YEN and buy a bottle of water at all the vending machines along the route. |
After my flight to Tokyo was delayed yesterday, I arrived at the hotel in Shinagawa just before midnight. So I slept rather long and after a day in Tokyo I finally got out for a run in the late evening. I looked for running routes and found a number of websites that talked about the Meguro river. Since that was more or less close to my hotel, I headed there and ran along the river for a bit over 3 km before turning around. The first 2 km of the run are mostly downhill, and since this is an out and back run, this means that the last 2 km are mostly uphill. It was a beautiful run and there were plenty of other runners on that route. I later looked at the Strava Global heat map and discovered that the Meguro river is indeed a popular destination for runners. Of course, not as popular as the Imperial Palace. Most of the intersections on the run are small and have no traffic lights, but there are a few larger ones, where you have to wait for the signal. It seems Japanese people rarely walk on a red signal, so it would be very rude to do that as a foreigner.