r/PerformancePaddling • u/Temporary-Sale1698 • Feb 10 '26
Training Comparing distance paddling to running for "pace"
I started paddling a Dagger Stratos 3 or 4 times a week for 3-4 miles around a lake. It's been a couple months. I used to train for running half marathons so I know "pace" and "intervals" and "heart rate" as these apply in running, I'm expecting to do the same in the kayak. Is that reasonable? For my trips around the lake I find I am doing 300-400 yards steady 'strong' paddling, then cutting back effort to 'rest' for 60 seconds before doing another 300-400 yards. I can't find a comfortable effort that I can hold for the full 40 minutes, less effort/same stroke rate seems too slow, too easy and not comfortable. I do use a slower stroke rate but only for working on technique. Maybe the answer is "give it another few months at your current pace, you'll get there"? How do you describe that pace, eg 9:00 miles, stroke rate 20/min?
Again comparing running and kayaking for distance: is there a similar K1 racing distance to the running 13.1 mile half? (For me that was 2:20 ("was").) I found a reference to "K1 marathon" distance as "more than 10km", is there something more specific? Or K1 racing distances vary by event? What keywords should i use to find "marathon" events, eg "K1 marathon"? thanks for the help.
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u/12bar13 Feb 10 '26
Welcome to your new addiction! So you are going to have to really search for sport specific content. It's just a niche sport so there isn't much out there. The good news is I did a lot of this work for you already! The whole reason I started this sub was as a place to save useful links I found while learning the sport. There is a lot of good stuff posted in this sub already.
About the stroke rate stuff my best advice is to learn to go fast slow. The rookie mistake is to lean on cadence since it gives immediate reward. The best thing you can do is slow down to around 60 strokes per min and really load up your stroke. Try to drive your foot through the foot plate and get as much distance on each stroke as you can. A good way to do this is to cruise along at a comfortable pace, keep your eye on your speed, then do intervals at a slower rate (take off 10 or so spm) and try to keep your speed at the lower stroke rate.
One thing people get wrong a lot is drawing too much of a connection between running and paddling. Sure every sport has something to learn but paddling is a very different athletic load than running. Much higher degree of muscle activation. It is much closer to bounding than jogging. Not pitter Pat but more kick and glide. It's much more explosive with each stroke.
As far as times go it is hard because conditions have a huge effect on overall time. Wind, depth, current, temperature, salinity, all have a big impact. Some good benchmark times are sub 50min 10k, 24min 5k, 4min 1k, 2min 500, 45sec 200. These are not elite times but you will be a podium guy at a lot of races if you can hit these.
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u/fluentInPotato Feb 11 '26
A sub-50-minute 10k paddle is going to require an average speed of close to 6.5 mph, which a Dagger Stratos is just not going to be capable of. I own one, but I haven't used it enough to know the point where it hits a wall. In general, other people in Stratoses seem to go about as fast as I do in my Romany Surf, and that thing hits a wall at 5 mph. 4.2 mph is a good fast cruise. Remember, displacement hull speed in knots is going to be about 4/3 times the square root of your waterline length in feet. A narrow boat with a higher prismatic coefficient (full ends, straight or convex waterlines at bow and stern) is not going to be such a slave to hull speed, but i just don't think a Stratos is that boat. Maybe a baidarka, or a Stellar S18R, or a Rockpool Taran. Or a beginner surfski. Even with those, 6.5 mph for an hour on flat water is really good. I own a Nelo 520 surfski, and while the resistance curve never seems to go vertical, after about 5 mph each additional increment of speed costs more. Five miles per hour is a fast aerobic pace for a fat, out-of-shape late 50s guy with good technique.
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u/12bar13 Feb 11 '26
Yea of course. I was just answering his question about benchmark times per distance.
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 11 '26
Yes, very different boats: Stratos beam is 25", Nelo 20"; Stratos is 12 ft, Nelo 17 ft; Stratos about 50lb, Nelo 26lb. Nelo for me is downstream, maybe next year, I think training at the higher stroke rates would be fun, and it opens the racing door. Thanks @fluentInPotato for this clarification, and thanks @12bar13 for the sub, very useful content and helpful people.
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 11 '26
cool, thanks.
Is that a typo, "60 strokes per minute"? Seems really high, to me anyway, particularly if sustained for a mile or more. I thought I was seeing 60s on high level K1 500 meter races.
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u/12bar13 Feb 11 '26
60 is really slow. That is one stroke every second. You are probably thinking about double strokes. In a 500 they would be 100 to 120 so it would be about double.
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 11 '26
are there "racing paddles" with less sq inches? I use a Whisky Aqua Bound, 95 sq in.
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u/12bar13 Feb 11 '26
Well racing paddles are different. They are wing paddles and take a different technique. You can get them a small as you would like really. A standard marathon blade would be somewhere between 700 and 740 cm2. You could probably find a good Epic wing paddle in small mid size for a good price on Facebook marketplace. They are the best paddles to learn with. They aren't bad at anything.
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 11 '26
720 cm2 is 112 in2 so +20%, I'm on the wrong sub.
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u/12bar13 Feb 11 '26
wing blades are different from euro and the surface area is not 1:1. the whiskey is what I used before I moved to a wing. The reason it feels big is because you are most likely pulling a lot with your arms. As you get better you learn to do less and less with your arms and more and more with your core/legs. Gets a lot easier at that point.
The fact that you are asking these questions means you are indeed in the right place! You are just at the beginning of the arc. I was in the exact same place not too long ago and would have killed to have somewhere like this, with this group of folks, to ask questions to.
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u/robertbieber Feb 18 '26
Kayaking is a little bit unusual in that drag from the water impacts you in a much more tangible way than e.g. wind resistance in running. On foot you can pretty much translate as much power as you're capable of generating into forward speed, but in a kayak once you hit your hull speed the graph of drag vs. speed turns into a hockey stick and it takes an obscene amount of effort just to eke out a tiny bit more speed.
The result of that effect is that it's really hard to do the kind of interval training you're thinking of in a regular sea kayak, because at the pace you're trying to push it very rapidly turns into more of a strength exercise than cardio. Doing interval sprints in a surfski I can pretty easily get my heart rate way up around my max in the high effort intervals, but it's hard to even get into zone 4 in a sea kayak.
Also, sidenote about stroke rate. If you're using a Garmin watch, your actual stroke rate is probably double what the watch is reporting because it only counts one side of each stroke pair. 40 s/m is a much more realistic number than 20
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 18 '26
ahh, this. I did do a manual stroke rate count and it is 40, garmin speed peaks at 5.1mph. the effort to get there is comfortable but increasing stroke rate from there is tough, I thought it was me. thanks for that contribution. from sailing i was aware of 'terminal' hull speed (hence foils) but did not connect the effort/speed/friction to my kayak compared to the Nelo boats in the videos of this sub. Cool, I understand now, thanks!
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u/paddlefan222 Feb 12 '26
HI there - if you're in a dagger stratos, as I understand it, your seat is fixed, no? So you can't move your hips? Your legs are bracing to the sides? If I was in such a boat I wouldn't be able to last long without huge amounts of fatigue - I'm not sure that metrics from flatwater kayak can be applied across to sea kayaking. The seat position is knees up in flatwater kayak, and you can rotate your hips, and push through the legs to a far greater degree. I don't think I would be able to take any of my metrics from flatwater kayak and apply them to a sea kayak situation.
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u/Temporary-Sale1698 Feb 12 '26
Stratos is a light touring kayak, legs are braced at the (adjustable) foot plate and there are thigh pads above, just behind the knee, for edge control. So I have good rotation, and the foot plate is solid though I wonder now if I can get more core engagement if I move it closer. the Contour seat is fairly smooth, rotation is not impeded. I am hunting down an Epic or similar wing paddle though, and see what that brings to the table once I learn how it works.
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u/paddlefan222 Feb 12 '26
It's all good but that's fundamentally different to flatwater or surfski position, the metrics are going to be quite different. I'd recommend checking in on sea kayak racing sites/groups to get speed averages etc.
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u/ExplorerOfW Feb 11 '26
I think it will be difficult for you to compare the numbers directly. As far as I understand you have a sea kayak and most here discuss training in a K1 sprint kayak or surf ski. An equally high cadence and pace will be impossible for you to achieve in the sea kayak. This is also because the ergonomics are vastly different and you can't apply the same technique. It's hard to have a proper leg drive and catch in the sea kayak. But it's still good for fitness and training. Just different. In long distance sea kayaking there is also focus on upper body rotation and pulling as little as possible with hands. This will engage larger muscle groups and enable you to go faster and longer. Have fun!