GIVEN that Edinburgh is her newly adopted home and she's married to a Scot, it's impossible not to wonder: could Keri-Anne Payne, a two-time world open water champion, be on the verge of switching allegiances?
It's a question that prompts a hearty laugh from Payne. "Would you change to English?" she asks, pointedly. "Well, I'm afraid it's the same answer for me. I'm proud to be English. Besides I would be probably be disowned by my family if I turned Scottish." Which succinctly clears that up.
What is less certain, however, is exactly what her involvement at the 2014 Commonwealth Games will entail. With no open water event in Glasgow next year, Payne, 25, is still weighing up whether to switch to the pool.
In the coming days, she'll be gauging her form as she competes at the Scottish Gas National Age Groups Championships – now opened up to senior athletes including Payne, Hannah Miley, Caitlin McClatchey and Craig Benson – at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh.
A packed racing programme will see Payne compete in the 800m freestyle today, with the 200m individual medley and 400m freestyle tomorrow and 200m freestyle on Saturday.
"I'm right in the middle of my biggest block of work for the world championships, so it will be a heavy week training-wise. The goal will be to get as many metres in as possible while doing some good quality racing at the same time."
Payne appeared to be relishing the prospect of going head-to-head with McClatchey and Miley. "Hannah pretty much races everything, so there will be a little bit of competition in there," she said.
"Hopefully Caitlin is only going for the 200m [freestyle] rather than deciding to go a bit further and do the 400m or 800m," Payne joked.
Her main focus remains the 10K open water swim with training efforts geared towards the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona this summer. Payne, an Olympic silver medallist in Beijing, will be taking part in the test event in June, a month before the actual competition.
"I've never been able to do a test event before because of circumstances or them being on the other side of the world," she said. "It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference."
Never one to shrink from a challenge – this, after all, is a women who has encountered dead dogs and shopping trolleys in her open water swim training – Payne has signed up to an eye-watering charity fundraiser.
The next few weeks will see her and team-mates including Craig Benson, attempt to swim the equivalent of the River Forth, stretching some 30 miles, no less than 17 times – or 1800 lengths in a 25m pool.
"We do so much training it's nice that, when we get to the end of the week and are all really tired, we can see how far we've come," she said. "We all feel great about doing it and it's helping Cash for Kids as well."
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