Spring Winds - No Need for Big Hills

Conditions for training over the last week have been challenging with windy spring conditions. With no builders at 95 Walker St last week we stayed there which allowed more training in the racing chair. The attached picture shows data from the longest training sessions I completed last week which lasted 2 hours 11 minutes with over 30km travelled. This session probably had the best weather conditions with nor-west winds gusting to 40km/hr. Other sessions were considerably shorter last week. One session I decided to turned around early with rain threatening. This was the first push that I have affected by rain, although it was quite light rain. Another push I turned around early because the rubber on my left pushrim started coming off. I did manage to flag down a farm worker who got me some duct tape to help repair the rim. 

The latest push I completed I had rather strong winds with gusts over 50 km/hr. My average speed for the last kilometre that I completed before the turn around was 9.7km/hr. On the way home I had my fastest ever average kilometre, a wind assisted 19.5km/hr. This training ended with a wind change from the west to south, my average speed end up a miserable 13.4km/hr. When I am pushing into a strong wind on a road with an incline, this must be as hard as pushing up a steeper road such as the climb up the bridge at the start of the NYC marathon. Tough training conditions should make me stronger for New York.

To finish off training last week I headed up to Christchurch to join the local chapter of Achilles NZ training session in Hagley Park. With less than hour to train I completed 11.5km with an average speed of 14.3 km/hr. This is not a bad speed considering all the people in the park and the difficult sections the path where it is narrow and bumpy due to tree roots. The session is followed up with coffee at the Antigua Boat Shed café.