Splashalot Blacklock thinks Doug and I are slow kayakers because "we are just used to going slow," which is at once, both hysterically funny and almost true. Now we aren't super slow; I can cruise at around 6 or 7 km/hour in reasonable conditions with a loaded boat over a full days paddle, but, compared to Splashalot who probably cruises at about 8 or 9 km/hour in the same conditions I am slow.
And, there is some truth to getting used to going slow which is why runners include tempo runs in their training even when they are mostly base building. But there is also death by threshold and no-one can go out hard all the time, every time. The #leaveitalloutthere hashtag is simply nonsense.
Speed at many, if not most, outdoor sports often comes down to efficiency. Simply speeding up transition points - switching leads on multi-pitch climbs, taking skins off and buckling boots for the ski down, efficient navigation and route-setting, all these things can shave hours off a day if you are a faffer. And by Dog there are a lot of faffers.
I am working on my paddle efficiency by trying to improve each stroke. Theoretically, at least Splashalot supports this contention, a better stroke will make a faster paddler. We'll see. On my 21 km cruise around the Bay area yesterday, I peaked at 10.2 km, but my average speed was only 6.3 km, which is clearly too slow.
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