Another training was in Sherwood Woods in Nottingham on the map of Byron's Walk. I had hoped to get further into South but unfortunately the course just circulated around a somewhat limited area. You can't always win can you? Well it was at least nice weather and an easy way to do a longer training when I included some warm-up and cool-down jogging along the paths. And taking 25 controls forces you to do some map reading too. In addition I got some extra hill training without even noticing it. Some areas were nice but most of it was quite outgrown (observe also the very true notifications on the map: light green = slow run; intermediate green = walk; green lines = walk; dark green = fight) and therefore I used a lot of paths. I passed a couple of "walk areas" and one "fight area" where I really had to drop the pace to get through. As long as you kept yourself in the runnable areas it was okay.
On Sunday OD organized a color-coded event and WMOA Champs in Hay Wood, one of the nearest forests to us. I've been training there a couple of times but it's always better when someone else plans the course and you don't know what to expect. I chose to do the Brown, the longest course available. It was a fun course with a lot of turns and an excellent compass training, as you couldn't see much of the features due to overgrown brackens. I may have made a couple of stops and took number 14 on my way to 7 but otherwise it went nice and smoothly. White areas weren't as open as you would think (due to brackens) but it was somewhat runnable and a lot of fun anyway!
