I keep reading about people breaking records like circumnavigating Ireland or Vancouver Island or making the fastest descent of the Mississippi river but I have not been able to find where those records are kept.
There is a brilliant resource for this sort of thing for just the UK; Performance Sea Kayaking but there does not seem to be an equivalent for anywhere else in the world.
Runners have Fastest Known Times with a pretty good and accessible database, swimmers have the Long Swims Database but I’ve not found an equivalent for paddle sports.
Has my google-fu let me down and I’ve missed something obvious or am I going to have to do it myself?
Newer concept here but am going to enjoy watching this one grow … propose a route, go establish a record, sit back and enjoy watching others try to match/exceed your accomplishments
I like the idea, though I’m not a racer.
If I were, I would suggest an occasional race around Cumberland Island (Georgia) (about 47 miles).
I used to paddle around it monthly.
The tides on the inside (non-ocean side) can be timed to the paddlers benefit.
That’s the cool thing about the concept, you don’t have to be a “racer” to establish a route and set the stage. Just File a route, go paddle it and record your time. This establishes the base time, hopefully encouraging others to see it and go out and see if they can “better” it. I’ve got 2 in mind for this summer that will hopefully get others interested in through - paddling a couple waterways and look forward to seeing others give it a shot
There are, of course, quite a number of old well established annual canoe/kayak races that have been held and for which records have been kept, but you’d need to look up those records for each event individually, I’d think. Rstevens suggestion would be an interesting one to try.
There’s an old established race on the Wisconsin R. (from Spring Green to Muscoda) and the Callie Rohr up on the headwaters. The Missouri 340 is another old established race for which records are probably kept by someone - its just a question of finding who. There was a race for the length of the Mississippi (BTW, one Pnetter - McWood - was on a support crew for Verlon Kruger (and Bob Foote(?) when they won that race. That record has since been beaten, I hear) but I don’t know how regularly or how often that race has been held. Perhaps there would be some records on such things kept by the American Canoe Association (ACA) as most such events follow rules/guidelines which are set by that organization.
Like darkstar, I’d be interested to see if the idea of non-race timed route running catches on - of course there would need to be some sort of verification standards established…
I’m sure it’s not just you. There are a lot of hikers that have no interest in trail running FKTs that doesn’t mean that nobody does and having this as a resource shouldn’t reduce the enjoyment for those not interested.
The fastest way to ruin any endeavor worth doing is to compete with other people. Even to be in a hurry is counter intuitive to outdoor re-creation.
An analogy would be through hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. I talk to them in July when they are coming through our area near home. Few of them can identify one tree they are spending 6 months hiking through. They don’t have much time to chat because they are trying to make 25 miles or more a day.
That’s completely false…. It’s a myth that racers miss things but it’s actually quite the opposite. I have several recreational paddler friends who posit this frequently, but I have seen and experienced things beyond their wildest imaginations. We are out at times and in conditions and go places that no rec paddler would find themselves in. I don’t miss anything and will gladly go toe to toe comparing lists with anyone sitting out there looking at birds with their binoculars waiting for something to come to them. Who else is out there in the middle of the night on the Guadalupe in June or 700 miles from Whitehorse on the Yukon looking for an island at midnight in July?
My interest is self-improvement, not competition. It’s great if that is your goal. We all have different things that drive our interest. It’s all good.
Whi wins or how fast they finished is just a matter of an individual’s determination. The real benefit is in understanding the strategy. Understanding your physical limitations is just as important as learning to roll. That’s true whether you compete or just paddle away from land and run into an emergency. What I learned from graphing trip avg speed mirrors the lesson the paddler learned through competion. It shoes how far outside of the aerobic threshold you can push before performance over distance begins to deteriorate. Paddling faster or harder just limits endurance.
You say you don’t want to compete or compare but offer an analogy that implies exactly that, the thru hikers don’t have time to chat therefore are not equipped to identify a tree or in too much of a hurry to take the time to do so. This also implies that another approach would be more capable or prepared to do so… comparison
Racers generally spend a good deal of their time not racing. You see us on race days but that’s actually a very small percentage of our time on the water, the majority is spent training and recreational paddling. Other activities on the water such as you suggest. I’m certain that many thru hikers do the same
