A SMOOTH entrance would be preferable but David McNamee wants to make an immediate splash when he embarks on what he hopes will be a successful second stage of his career in Dubai today.
The 26-year-old from Irvine, who finished seventh in last summer's Commonwealth Games, will throw himself into his first race on the Ironman circuit following his move up to the longer and tougher distance at the end of 2014.
With his hopes of earning a place in Great Britain's Olympic team looking slim, McNamee sought a change of direction, believing that a fresh challenge would provide the incentive he needed to carry on pushing himself to the outer limits.
However with the desert race forming the first leg of the million dollar Challenge Triple, he has no plans to ease gently into the fray.
"It's very exciting, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in," he said. "I know I will improve as the season goes on and I get more used to the format. However I think I could start off pretty well. It could be a shock to the system. I'm expecting that about half way through the marathon. But we shall see."
With his training regime radically revamped during a month-long stint in Spain under former GB head coach Joel Filiol, it has all been a test of endurance for McNamee, who ended last season by coming 14th in the ITU Grand Final in Edmonton. Previously a training partner to the Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny, in Leeds, coming close but without lighting a cigar, had become increasingly frustrating.
However with the target of vying with his fellow Dubai-bound Scots Ritchie Nicholls and Fraser Cartmell for a podium finish and, ultimately, places at the year-end world championships in Kona, the Ironman arrival is confident he will not run immediately out of steam.
"It will be interesting to see how I go first time out but I will be in good shape so we shall see," McNamee said. "I'm doing Ironman South Africa at the end of March, so after that race, my body will definitely know it's doing Ironman now."
Great Britain's Jodie Swallow and Switzerland's reigning Ironman 70.3 world champion Daniela Ryf head the women's field.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article