There are both ups and downs to being a hardened veteran of the toughest Ironman race on the planet, something that David McNamee is only too aware of.
Having spent nearly a decade of his life jumping on a plane and heading to Kona almost every autumn, the 36-year-old knows the Ironman World Championships inside out.
The trip to Hawaii for the sport’s most famous race is one he’s undergone once again this year, and as he prepares to stand on the start line of the 2024 Ironman World Championships today, he admits he remains undecided as to whether or not having such intimate knowledge of what lies ahead is a positive or a negative.
“In general, the experience I’ve garnered is a good thing and is helpful - but experience can also be a bad thing. I’ve been doing this sport for so long and I’ve had such a mixture of both positive and negative experiences from races. So for all the good moments, I’ll have had some bad too,” the Girona-based Ayrshire man says.
“In Kona, the last 100m of the race is the best part. When you know you’re going to finish – that feels incredible.
“But the bike is always the toughest leg for me. I know how tough it can be when you’ve been racing for hours already but you still have a very long way to go. Mentally, that’s very hard to deal with.
“In football, commentators talking about a team snatching victory from the jaws of defeat but in Ironman, you have to do that eight or ten times a race. It’s an emotional rollercoaster.
“My moto throughout the race is “just keep going”. No matter how hard it feels or how tired I feel, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving towards the finish line because with experience, you realise that no matter how bad you feel during the race, once you get to the finish line you’ll feel a lot better.”
Say the word Kona to anyone with even a passing interest in triathlon, and specifically Ironman, and they know it’s the absolute pinnacle of the sport.
Only the very best ever make to the start line in Kona, even fewer ever achieve a place on the podium.
McNamee, however, has found himself on the podium in Kona twice in his career; in both 2017 and 2018, the Scot finished third which is a feat only the most physically fit and mentally resilient athletes could ever contemplate.
It’s not only the Ironman World Championships in which McNamee has excelled; since he stepped up the distance from regular triathlons to Ironman in 2015, the Scot has regularly found himself battling with the world’s very best over the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 miles of a marathon run that make up every Ironman race.
But for all the events across the globe that McNamee has been a part of, there remains, he says, something unique about Kona that never fails to impact him.
“For me, Kona is special. When I was a kid, it’s what I grew up watching on Transworld Sport on a Sunday morning,” he says.
“Being a kid growing up on the west coast of Scotland, I didn’t know anyone who’d ever been to Hawaii, never mind raced Kona. For me, it was this unbelievably crazy thing that I’d never get the chance to do.
“Because of that, Kona is always going to be so special to me and every time I arrive in Hawaii, it reminds me of being a little kid in Ayrshire watching this event.”
The race itself will take McNamee and his fellow racers around eight hours to complete.
It’s a physical test that is unmatched across the sporting world and while McNamee is far too experienced to head into the race with any specific targets in mind, he’s quietly confident that he could make a real impact.
“My season hasn’t been quite as consistent as I’d have liked but the good performances have been better than they have been for a few years so that’s been very encouraging,” he says.
"I feel in very good shape physically – you can never predict what will happen on the day in Kona but I do feel like I’m in the kind of shape where I could be challenging at the front of the race again.
“When I was younger, I was much more irrational and even if I’d raced my best-ever race, if it didn’t get me on the podium, I was very disappointed. My feelings were much more based on the final result but these days, I’ll be able to walk away happy as long as I know I’ve had a very good race, wherever I finish.”
Age has caught up with McNamee in some sense in that he admits he no longer has it in him to be firing on all cylinders for 12 months of the year. But he’s very much still able to get himself up for the big races, and they come no bigger than Kona.
So, while he’s under no illusions about the task in front of him today, he’s also in little doubt that he’ll be able to wring every drop of effort out of his body.
“My motivation levels vary but for the big races, my drive is absolutely still there,” he says.
“When I was younger, I wanted to win everything and I’d be on from January to December whereas now, if I tried to go through the year like that, I’d burn out.
“But at the races that really matter to me, especially in Kona where I’m still that excited little kid, I’m so motivated.
“When I get to these huge races and don’t feel that surge of energy, that’s when it’ll be time to give it up."
