Any tips to paddling fast and maintaining 5mph over a 2 hour period on a 18ft sea kayak (Current Designs Solstice GTS with Werner Cyprus paddle)? I was not exhausted after 2.5 hours of paddling at what you see in the video so that just means I did not paddle hard enough.

I put the paddle forward as much as I can reach and I pull it out of water before it gets behind me. I do not grip the paddle tightly. I try pushing my left and right leg opposite to my stroke motion but didn’t see much effectiveness so I just end up locking up my leg solid against the foot peg. Occassionally adjusted my hip weight when the mini waves were kicking me around a little bit.