Tokyo · Shinagawa / Meguro, Tokyo

Rinshi-no-mori Park Course

Facilities at This Course

Course Highlights

• ✓Unusually tall mature trees — a former forestry experiment station, not an ordinary park
• ✓Deep shade across almost the whole route, which makes it the best summer option in central Tokyo
• ✓Soft gravel and dirt paths, easier on the legs than road running
• ✓A genuine local neighbourhood park with almost no tourists
• ✓Musashi-Koyama's long covered shopping arcade minutes away for food after

About This Course

Rinshi-no-mori was a national forestry experiment station for most of the twentieth century before becoming a public park, and that history is the reason to run here. The trees are far older and taller than in an ordinary city park, including specimens planted for research that you would not otherwise see in Tokyo, and the canopy they form is dense enough to change the temperature underneath it. On an August morning, when running along an exposed riverside is genuinely unpleasant, this is where you go. A loop of the main paths comes to roughly 1.5 km, and most runners here do laps — two or three makes a comfortable 3–5 km session. The surfaces are mostly gravel and packed earth rather than asphalt, which is noticeably kinder to the legs than most Tokyo running, and the gradients are gentle. It is a neighbourhood park in the truest sense: local runners, dog walkers, families, and effectively zero tourists. The area it serves is a gap on most running maps. Shinagawa and Gotanda have a large concentration of business hotels, and visitors staying there often assume they need to travel to the Imperial Palace or Yoyogi for a decent run. Rinshi-no-mori is closer, quieter and shadier than either. The honest limitation is size — this is not a course for a long run, and lapping a 1.5 km loop repeatedly is not to everyone's taste. For distance, run here as a warm-up and continue toward the Meguro River path to link into a longer route. Afterwards, Musashi-Koyama has one of Tokyo's longest covered shopping arcades, which is both an excellent place to eat and a useful place to keep moving on a rainy day.

Nearby Running Stations

Facilities for changing, storing luggage, and showering before and after your run.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about running Rinshi-no-mori Park Course.