[Paddlewise] Conquering Kayakers?

Hi All,
I recently pondered aloud to a group of sea kayakers that I had noticed a
personality "type" that is driven and eager to accomplish a certain kind of
outdoor "feat" such as circumnavigate a large lake, or be the first to
paddle solo across a wide expanse, paddle 600 miles alone in a short number
of days, or conquer some other outdoors challenge.  I wondered about this
because while I love to kayak (and bike and ski and snowshoe), I don't
really have a need or desire to do this sort of thing. I'm happy just to
paddle and while I would love to say circumnavigate Lake Superior, it isn't
something I feel I need to do -- it doesn't have more appeal than other
trips I can go on.  So part of my curiosity is -- what is this about? What
makes people want to paddle to conquer? (I realize it's not just paddling,
of course.)  The second part of my outloud musing was that it seems to me
that, more often than not, these folks are men. So I wondered (and this got
me into a bit of hot water since I'm female) whether there was some gender
thing going on here (and *I* wasn't the one to use the word testosterone!).

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

-Jody
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