Last year when Kimarra McDonald placed third in the 800m at the JAAA National Senior Trials to book a spot to the Commonwealth Games in Scotland, she was almost a complete stranger to Jamaican track fans.

But the athlete is hoping that she can turn this around as she once again attempts to make a senior team when she tackles the field for a place to the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China.

The 27-year-old New Jersey born runner will have to be near, if not, her best ever to make the qualifying standard of 2:01.00 minutes, faster than the 2:02.20 seconds she ran in 2012 if she is to make her third straight national senior team.

McDonald, whose mother was born in Jamaica, says she knows the two-fold challenge in front of her this weekend at the JAAA National Senior Trials set for the National Stadium won’t be easy.

“I am expecting to finish in the top three and get the qualifying standard so 2.01.00 seconds or better is what I am aiming at,” she told the Jamaica Observer after running a season’s best 2:02.38 seconds at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in New York two weeks ago.

“I know it’s going to be tough and there are a couple of good girls, (Natoya) Goule and (Simoya) Campbell. I am expecting a good race, it won’t be easy,” she said.

This weekend will be the third time she will be running at the National Stadium as she also competed at the Jamaica International Invitational in early May, but says she has been to the island many times.

“I have been to Jamaica a lot, I have lots of family there, I do enjoy the culture and I grew up with my mother’s side so I always considered myself more a Jamaican than an American,” she said.

McDonald, who is nicknamed ‘Chica’, attended high school in New Jersey before attending the University of Tennessee on an athletics scholarship.

While she might not be familiar to most of the track and field fans in Jamaica, McDonald said she has been warmly welcomed by her teammates on both the Commonwealth Games and IAAF World Relay Championships teams.

“It was fun, it was really good,” she told the Observer when asked about her experiences in Scotland and the Bahamas. “I was a little nervous coming from the States, but they embraced me and that’s all I could ask for.”

If she is to stay on the team, she knows she has a lot of work to do. “I just have to keep training hard, putting in the work and get my mind right.”