Pick Your Poison

If you don't live here you probably imagine that Hawaii weather is ideal all the time... but I will tell you, just because it doesn't snow doesn't mean it's always ideal here!

Usually all winter it rains a lot and can be pretty consistently windy. It starts to rain less and less as summer approaches but the wind remains fairly constant. By mid/late summer it heats up for sure though usually it's still pretty windy. See a theme? So we deal with wind. We get used to it. It is what it is. Most of the time it's pretty solid 10-15mph and we def get nice tailwind sections when we're riding with the wind at our backs but then the rest of the time we're fighting it as cross or headwind. It's pretty predictable so I'd like to say it's not that bad though honestly when it kicks up to 20+mph, I typically feel like I've just fought a war by the time I get off my bike. That usually happens like 2x/week.

Today it was particularly windy. And if it's windy here, you can pretty much guess that it's REALLY windy in Kona. For whatever reason it's usually even windier there. I thought this tweet from Lindsey Corbin (who is training in Kona at the moment)  today was funny.

Here on Oahu we were blessed with pissing rain as well this morning so that was fun. Or not. I rode with Nalani this morning and since it was raining when we started I checked the satellite radar and it appeared that after ~10 miles we'd be in the clear... so it was a suck it up buttercup situation and we started the ride. Well, ~10 miles in we rounded a point and got to see what it looked like up the coast and unfortunately it did not appear that we were going to get a break.

If today was just a standard aerobic ride I would have just soldiered on and dealt with the wind and rain but the goal today was to drill it for a while and that just seemed too risky in these conditions. So we bailed on the ride and went home to run instead. I'll try again tomorrow.

So while I was fighting the war with the wind on my run this morning (just trying to keep my hat on!) I was thinking about how we pretty much either are always either battling wind or heat. Pick your poison. Except we don't really get to choose. I would say though, if I did get to choose, I think I'd pick heat. When it's blazing hot I don't feel like I really slow down much... at least not until I've been going for a really long time... But wind has the capacity to REALLY slow you down right from the get go. And when it's super relentless (it always is, isn't it?) I think it messes with my head more on those long training days. That said, on race day maybe I would prefer wind? Tough call. At Honu we're likely going to get excessive wind or excessive heat... b/c if its windy its not really that hot. But if the wind doesn't blow it'll be smoldering. Strong winds favor strong cyclists so there's a part of me that thinks it would be super if Madame Pele had piss in her cheerios next Saturday b/c even though I'm not a huge fan of drilling myself into a headwind all day, that would likely be a competitive advantage for me... I  know I *can* do it even if I don't prefer it... and 56 miles is really not that long... and I probably have more recent experience training in wind than heat at the moment b/c we only had like a week or two where it was really hot but it's been windy all winter. But whatever. Wind or heat. Either will be fine next weekend.

If you could pick your poison, which would you pick? Wind or heat?