hot paddling
If you get over-heated get wet. Go swimming, wet your clothes, wear light colors. Wet your hat. The water is right there so use it to cool your self.
Learn to paddle with your trunk muscles. Work on your stamina.
Wind, tides and current are huge variables. On flat water most people can do 10-15 miles a day. Adverse conditions, maybe 2-4 or less. Big current 40-100 miles are possible in one day.
It Was BIFC That Made The Call On
That’s Boise Interagency Fire Center. There’s always time to snack. Snacks and water work the best. Lay off on the carbs. For body works best burning fat.
Gatorade used to be a staple on fires. Then it was determined that it inhibited the body’s ability to absorb water. We were told it was better not to drink it. If we did no more than one a day at a 50/50 mix with water.
I trust BIFC. They are the premier fire center in the world.
Screw sports drinks.
Great thread!
Thanks for the thread. It has lots of useful info in it for myself. I, too, am an elderly newbie kayaker, who just bought two small SOT’s (8 feet). I’ve been practicing maneuvers in the pool for two days. Tomorrow, I’m going out on the lake… a very smooth lake w/o any speed boats. I liked the suggestion to soak the PFD on a hot day and to stay close to the shoreline.
water and lemon juice
cold Perrier ! as an orange Red Bull chaser.
Perrier=Bull really belts 130 degree heating.
Individuals who are not fat-adapted but
still relying on carbs (and not eating enough “mineral rich” nicely salted foods before exertion) may respond better to small amounts of sports drinks in a dire situation.
Water’s best, but, if they’re crashing, they’re crashing, and if they need to be carbed up a bit with those nasty sugar/salt liquids, they need it. Ideally, one would never get to that situation, but, stuff happens.
I’m fat adapted as far as diet - long term, but married to more of a carb burner, who eats the same thing as I do, for one to two meals a day- but have learned to ALWAYS carry something for both metabolic situations when we do something together, because we can eat the same thing beforehand and I don’t get “hungry” the same way- which can actually be bad for someone else who needs to refuel sooner but was just being polite about saying something.
My latest whoops was myself 2 weekends ago when I misplaced my custom made snack with protein/fat (still haven’t found it…) when I went to pull it out of my fanny pack and had to resort to the regular emergency candy bar I carry for others. It worked well at the time, but since it had sugar there was a delayed effect, and I was then queasy for the rest of the late afternoon/evening when I compounded the error with a little more sugared solution with a quart of water when I was done. Regular people do not react to sugars this way, but this is what happens to some of us as we age. Not only do we change metabolically, but we take things out of the cooler in the car and then probably leave them on the car bumper or something, meanwhile the truck went to the relay drop off… Now I have reinforced, for the year, that I really do not want to do that again if I don’t have to during “max exertion.”
Kids and teens these days doing outside sports in the afternoon heat 85- 95ºF or higher, way, way too dependent on drinking that sports drink stuff instead of eating a decent lunch (with salt, not that saltless nonsense) and drinking plain water- now, that 's bad. Replacing “food” with corn sugar water isn’t good nutrition, and that’s the danger with reliance on sports drinks as a form of rehydration.
Just go for it
and let your relatives know where your will is located.
My Food And Water
Is what I first place along my kayak at the shore. I use three soft coolers one inside the other. Ice water is great when it’s over 100°.
Better things than a candy bar
Regular grocery stores sell energy bars, some of which contain a better ratio of protein and fat to carbs. If you want one that is less “engineered” there are still good, convenient bars such as BeKind nut bars. Read the label for each variety and pick a couple that meet your nutritional desires.
I like to carry salted nuts or a nut-heavy trail mix, but the bars are a compact, light item that fit easily in a PFD pocket.
sports drinks have a specific purpose
for hydration beyond what is normally needed. People misuse sports drinks all the time but they serve a purpose for people like marathoners who rely on them. Then there’s PediaLyte, which may agree with more of us than gatorade.
Yes, but
I am sort of limited as to what I can actually use in the purchased-over-the-counter category because of several physical conditions. I don’t normally “candy bar” in that sort of situation but that brand/flavor is one of the few things I’ve tried that didn’t set off a cross reaction. If I eat the wrong thing I can either get a delayed auto immune reaction (no fun, my gluten reactions include migraines) but worse is the food allergy to one ingredient common to energy bars (really no fun) or exercise induced asthma right in the middle of what I’m doing (really, really really no fun.).
Hence I was sort of dismayed that my “custom made energy bar” crafted the day before with the safe stuff out of my kitchen pantry was not in the bag ! I just had a good ol’ fashioned “too much sugar” reaction later. If I dropped it somewhere that am, I hope a chipmunk or squirrel at least had some use out of it !
I was probably one of the happiest people on the planet that it worked, almost as happy as the first time I pushed maximum exertion 2 years ago on my heavily revised gf diet (of over a decade) and had no problems breathing at all, or recovering. This won’t matter to most people, but it matters to people like me. We can have some scary air quality here because of smoke from summer forest fires, and this avoiding things like regular “energy bars” really has made a difference in how I react to that. I still carry meds but am not as worried that I might get stuck outside miles from the car/house in a suddenly arising smoke situation, such as “what if” I am hiking/biking/paddling etc, and the wind shifts and here comes a plume.
I think also the theobromine is helping me in the chocolate.
haha
I grew up skiing in the midwest. I finally got a chance to ski Mt Hood a few years ago. I skied to the bottom and was wiped out, so I asked the guy at the lift how you all can ski from top to bottom out there. He replied, “usually, we don’t.” Made me feel a tiny bit better!
49
needs a foil cooler wrap.
3M electrical tape wound around cooler over HD Reynolds foil and wrapped onto itself…
will hold foil on cooler
App
I just start it when I start a trip and end it when I am finished, it tracks the my speed, distance, route etc. No premium version needed. Like the other person said, you can select any category it doesn’t matter, it will track that stuff.
I Use A Heat Reflector When
Camping in the heat.
a faster boat
There are boats that will cruise along a 5 mph with little effort. The Epic V7 is a plastic sit on top surfski perfect for that type of outing. It would be tippier than the super wide SOT boats but after a week you would not notice. They also weigh less than the thing you have now. If you have some $ to spend, Epic makes a full carbon version of their very stable V8 boat which tips the scales at 19 lbs. I know two 70 years olds who paddle them.
As far as over the hill comments, my local surfski races are filled with fast paddlers in their 60’s and 70’s.
Holy health disaster!
With all those perceived health issues, can’t eat this, can’t eat that, breathing problems from this that and the other thing, and you’re telling me not to come paddle in your state!!! A little advice, don’t base your assumptions on what someone is capable of on your obvious physical limitations. Most of us are not so feeble. Sorry for you.
With training, you mite possibly adapt
to the habit of checking the local SMOKE FORECAST from the National Weather Service before starting anything.
But I don’t know if your DNA has been generationally selected for functioning in our climate extremes. Doesn’t sound like it.
If you drive anywhere, you have to be fit enough to withstand temps of 108ºF - 120ºF if your A/C fails, or if you get out and have to stage gear on hot asphalt. Paddling? The water can’t really cool you off for long, even if you soak yourself. Most people actually cannot do this sort of thing - exercising in summer heat extremes - without careful training and taking extra special care, because it is difficult to cool the body down when the air temp is that much higher than normal body temperature.
For amusement sometimes I will go ride through the local retirement suburbs and they are ghost towns during the day. It is actually spooky. They just don’t go out. The heat will kill them. Yet they have the nice sidewalks, the park trails, the bike lanes. They don’t even GOLF hardly at all, once the temperatures go over 80ºF.
This is what happens to our generation. They are so full of side effects of those maintenance, allegedly life prolonging drugs, they can’t even freaking golf in their retirement villas during a NorCal summer day, without risking a heat stroke.
Leaving just us passing-by visitors doing conditioning, dog walkers, and the landscapers enjoying the scenery…
ok this is getting absurd
1. Cars have air conditioning and windows that open.
2. Any body of water that is below your body temperature will cool you off. I paddle in the 90s often and combined with humidity that is unknown at such temperatures to you folks.
3. People are generally unfit because they don’t embrace fitness and what goes into maintaining it. Not because of what food or drugs they may or may not have used.
Radskier is right: you’re projecting.
Kayaks don’t have "air conditioning"
if you are relying on A/C to get you to the launch point because you cannot otherwise withstand the outdoor air temperatures, you are not going to be able to exert yourself and paddle any meaningful distance.
If you don’t have a breeze, and you’re trying to splash down with tepid warm water, and the air temperature is OVER your natural body temperature, you won’t be going very far, either, unless you’re riding a current.
It’s okay to just take a kayak out and have fun. But boasting you’re going far because you’re living in a colder climate is just… really lame.
Epic Prices - Wow!
Just took a quick look on the Epic site - that’s an expensive kayak!! My little Ocean Kayak Venus 11 SOT was under $700, so that’s just “a bit” out of my range. But of course, others here may be able to spend that kind of $$. Interesting designs, though, and love the light weight models!