My century days are over, but that does sound like a helluva lot of fun!
The need for electrolytes is greatly exaggerated. If you need to take supplemental potasium and magnesium then do that with your meals.
Water is more important than most folks appreciate. When one becomes dehydrated the blood thickens and this affects the entire body. Important to drink at regular intervals and not wait until you are thirsty.
For food what is needed are carbs and natural sugars and I find raisins and homemade brownies that I make with peanut butter, rice powder, carob powder, and monk fruit, to be tasty and inexpensive and they hold up well and can be eaten with one hand.
I have had multiple kayaks and eventually bought a Hobie with the pedal drive. I found that using my leg muscles instead of my arm muscles I could pedal at twice the speed and go forever even with headwinds. The Hobie has a rudder and so that was what I used to do all the steering of the boat.
With crosswinds I was having to have one side of my body do all the work to maintain a straight course if I did not have a rudder. With a rudder I could use both sides of my body to move forward and the rudder compensated for the crosswind or current.
Meat, fruits, vegetables, time, good sleep, paperback book. Take a layover day. And lotsa, lotsa water. The water in your coffee is ,on balance, more important that the coffee.
I canoe and camp. Travel long rivers, I love white water. I have several times done 40 miles. Just 4 weeks ago I had a single day of 31 miles. Total on that trip was just shy of 100 miles, but also 9 days. I think 3 layover days of food, wildlife, a little hiking, and several paperback books. I am 72 and a heart patient. One oddity I have noted. If a long trip (400 or 600 miles) there is a nutrient that I don’t get, I am a terrible cook, and what keeps in a canoe for a month, and that unknown something is in raw yogurt. Don’t know what it is, but a quart of yogurt can perk me right up, with about a pound of berries. Please also keep in mind, canoeing, a full load, long expedition, calorie requirements per day are similar to an Olympic swimmer in training. At 6,000 plus calories per day I lose weight steadily. Came back from paddling the Desolation/Gray Canyons almost 20 pounds lighter.
Avoiding muscle fatigue and quickly recovering from it, the best method is to sit still on the couch and avoid all extraneous movement. Keep the remote close at hand. A partner to supply food and drink is essential. Alcoholic drinks in mild excess to avoid a hangover is recommended. A good lounge chair that you can effortlessly fall asleep in helps. Avoid excessive caffeine or stimulants. Snacks heavy in fat can work.
Do not watch sports or shows with political or religious content. Antiques Roadshow is generally safe as are shows about gardening or the life of whales.
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Maybe I’m weird, but i find R. Lee Ermy to be quite soothing and helpful for falling asleep.
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You da man!
Stay hydrated.
Eat complex carbs.
Add glucose and fructose.
I was hiking on the Alaska/BC border in snow and sleet in August carrying a large pack in steep country. The value of a bar with grain and some sugar in it was amazing. Clif Bars for instance, added a great boost of energy.
Yes, beverages:
Caffeine before
Chocolate milk after
Eat early and often, mostly stuff you like preferrably having some fats because endurance is seldom at high heart rate high exertion so its not anaerobic therefore fats give you more long lasting power.
Drink early and often, preferrably something you like, electrolytes are mostly a scam especially if you’re eating a variety of foods. Most snack foods you will likely eat are full of sodium and electrolytes anyway.
Lift weights. This helps cross train ANY sport and boost endurance. I can not paddle for a few months, I ride bike including MTB and do other sports a lot but weight train 2-5x a week schedule depending and every time I get back on the kayak I am not 100 percent but within a week or two its as if I never stopped.
Cross train with other sports especially easy ones. Look up zone 2 training this boosts endurance.
Get a garmin and log all your workouts to see where your strengths and weaknesses are in your aerobic exercise system(s).
Train at different intensities as well but with the following in mind. Paddle as much as possible but If you hardly train then you need to train VERY hard. The more you exercise it should be bimodal. I mean once or twice a week you should have very difficult and demanding workouts that make you feel like you are going to die. But you want to go into those sessions fresh so the other days you need to train mostly very easy (again see zone 2) otherwise a high volume of intensity leads to overtraining and less gains.
I’ve paddled The September Adirondack 90 mile Classic canoe race 27 times so far, which is a 3 day staged race of 35, 30, 25 miles with overnight rest breaks between each day. As bow paddler, I set the team pace stroke of about 60 spm as the average pace goal, with occasional bursts of up to 80 spm when necessary. My race team also otherwise enjoys the unofficial non-competitive “cannonball-90”, which is completing the entire 90-mile race course within a single 24 hour day, usually done on or near the summer solstice with a start at the stroke of midnight.
i’ve also paddled the 440 mile Yukon River Quest 3 times, which has two mandatory intermediate rest stops of 7 and 3 hours, but otherwise includes paddling many hours of the day and through overnight hours, for a total of at least 45 hours on the water before finishing.
The best endurance race, IMO, is the Yukon 1000 mile race, which I have paddled twice. The Y!K rules require that we stop and camp/rest for not less than 6 hours each undark “night” while we are up near and above the arctic circle. My team keeps the 18 hour all day paddle pace constant for the entire period for the entire six days we take to finish the Y1K. Chocolate covered coffee beans are a favorite snack for caffeine content.
In each marathon race segment, proper stroke maintenance attention is the most critical procedure to muscle health, It requires a nearly constant frequent intake of calories and liquid nutrition. I have found that what works best for me is to have a frequent pop of cherries (in season at the right time), maybe a sausage link or two, and some carbs like fig newtons or similar. High calorie Ensure or Boost work well a few times during the day, but too much does not settle well with some people, including myself. Gatorade or the like electrolyte must be diluted 3:1 with water for best feeling results.
Re Ensure and similar, the soy protein is hard to digest for some, including me. It’s a major ingredient in many “protein bars” too.
YES! Antiques Roadshow is my go-to for bedtime. I know a person or two who turn to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.