Dave Macleod | Gameplan Media - Multiple world champion Hank McGregor will be paddling into unchartered waters at the start of the 2015 Dusi Canoe Marathon from 19 to 21 February as he sets off on a "social" mixed doubles Dusi with his wife Pippa.

"I don't think I have ever started a paddling event socially. Ever. So it is going to be something new for me," says McGregor, who won the Dusi K1 title in 2005 and was back on the top step of the podium with Martin Dreyer in the K2 race in 2006.

Since winning the Marathon World Championship K1 and K2 titles in Oklahoma City in September, McGregor has clearly mapped out a different set of personal and paddling priorities, heavily influenced by the birth of his son Thorsten in mid-2014.

"Pippa has been asking me for years now to do a Dusi with her once my competitive paddling days are over and it is something that we are really looking forward to."

The 37 year-old Ballito resident has shifted his paddling focus away from the unique and rigorous training required for a competitive K1 Dusi and instead will focus on purist river marathons, flatwater marathons and surfski races as well as a bid to claim a sixth ICF Canoe Marathon world title.

He is also unashamedly rejigging his priorities to leave time aside for a concerted effort at making the national sprint team as a K1 1000 metre specialist and with it, the hope of qualifying for the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.

"The 2015 Dusi with Pippa will be a totally new experience for me; I am super excited!” said McGregor, who started preparations for the 2015 Dusi with his wife Pippa by winning the KZN Mixed Doubles Champs on the Umzimkulu River in mid-December.

"I am ready to start way back in the field and to wait in queues to shoot obstacles or get onto portages."

McGregor, who battled through much of the competitive 2014 year with a calf injury that extended to Achilles tendon complications, says he is worried about staying up with his wife's impressive trail running abilities on the portages.

"It’s going to be tough and I am sure she will let me know all about it if she thinks I am not going fast enough.

"Pippa raced the Lettie Paddle 50 Miler with Debbie Germiquet, who is a really great river paddler, so I am a little worried about having my driving skills on the Dusi compared to Debbie's.

"I love paddling with Pippa. She is the only partner that I have ever paddled with who chirps me all the time.

"In all my other K2 partnerships pretty much what I say, goes. But Pippa enjoys giving me an earful!"

While McGregor is looking forward to mixing it with the rank and file Dusi paddlers this summer, he admits that it will be hard to snuff out the competitive flame entirely.

"Look, if we find ourselves alongside another K2 I will want to race them for sure," he says. "But it is not about the racing at all, it's all about fun.

"If we can possibly win the husband-and-wife prize that would be a real cherry on the top!"

The social Dusi with his wife does create complications with baby-sitting responsibilities and while dad and coach Lee McGregor is an eager baby-sitter, he too might be coaxed into a "social" K2 Dusi or offer to second.

The 64th edition of the Dusi Canoe Marathon takes place from Camps Drift in Pietermaritzburg to Blue Lagoon in Durban from Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 February 2015. More information can be found at www.dusi.co.za