Its in the cadence

In the lee of the barges

Saturday Dean and I paddled almost 11 kms into an increasingly stiff wind. It was going to be a bit of a workout until we decided to turn and ride the wind back.

Occasionally I would stop to take pictures and I'd lose ground to Dean.

I generally have a low paddling cadence at between 26 - 28 strokes per minute. I'd have to put extra umph into each stroke just to catch up. At one point I watched Dean's cadence; he was much quicker than I was. I increased mine to match his and found it easier to lose the gap.

I knew, of course, that an increased paddle cadence results in increased speed but I didn't realize how much quicker Dean was paddling. A high paddle cadence is a must paddling into the wind to maintain speed because forward movement slows when the paddle is not in the water and the wind is trying to blow the entire lot downwind.