If you need a nice lofty goal to keep you motivated then here’s a good one for ya. Travis Grant, the reigning Molokai champ, scored an epic downwinder in his backyard on Oahu yesterday, averaging 14km/h (8.7mph) and regularly hitting bursts of over 20km/h (13mph/14mph). Trav is clearly enjoying himself in his newly-adopted home of Hawaii.

Yesterday’s downwinder was on the classic Hawaii Kai run, which stretches from Hawaii Kai, around Diamond Head and finishes at top end of Waikiki. It’s been the site of some classic downwind races in past years and when it’s on it rivals any downwind run in the world.

Obviously yesterday’s conditions were firing, but a lot of the reason Travis hit these kind of speed is because he’s an absolute downwind machine. The guy has won plenty of races in the surf and on the flat, but it’s in the bumps where he feels at home. Which means if the wind turns on for the big OluKai race on Maui next month, we could be in for a classic showdown between the likes of Connor/Kai/Danny/Travis/Dave/Jeremy/Livio.

Just take a look at that 5th mile split: 15.7km/h (9.7mph) average speed…

And just for the board aficionados, Travis was using his 14′ NSP ocean board in yesterday’s run. I paddled that thing when we did some downwinders in New Caledonia last month. It moves.

Anyway if you wanna take a look at the full stats from Trav’s run, so that you can dream of speeds us mere mortals will probably never reach on a stand up paddleboard, here’s the full breakdown on Garmin Connect.