AUDREY McIntosh is no stranger to extreme challenges; she has already become the first Scot ever to do the Antarctic Odyssey, made up of the Antarctic Ice Marathon and the Antarctic 100km, both completed within three days of each other, as well as running the North Pole Marathon and the West Highland Way Race.

These, however, will seem like a walk in the park compared to what McIntosh is now planning. The 53 year-old from the south side of Glasgow has her sights set on doing seven ultra-marathons in seven days on seven continents.

To most mere mortals, this seems like an unimaginable prospect. For McIntosh, it is nothing more than a new and exciting challenge. No woman has ever completed seven ultra-marathons in seven days on seven continents but the Scot remains unfailingly optimistic her Global Odyssey is achievable.

“I think this will be the toughest thing I’ve done,” she admits. “Based on the logistics, I might even be running more than one ultra-marathon in one day but in a sense, the running is the easy bit.

“There’s all the travel, the sleep deprivation, not necessarily getting the food you would want so it’s going to be a massive challenge on all levels.

“It’s exciting and intimidating at the same time but I think you need that – you need that nervous energy to keep you going and the nerves make you more risk-aware.”

McIntosh had initially planned to undertake her Global Odyssey in January of 2017 but there has been a change of plan. She has now pushed that back and this coming January she will attempt a double marathon challenge in two of the most extreme and testing climates imaginable.

McIntosh will be part of a small group to run a marathon in the desert in Namibia, then just a couple of days later, run a marathon in Outer Mongolia meaning she will go from +40 degree heat to -40 degree cold.

It will prove a stiff test but McIntosh believes it will be an integral part of her preparation for the Odyssey.

“It’s really exciting to have this opportunity but the extreme conditions will make it very challenging,” she says. “Going from Namibia to Mongolia will be a 80 degree temperature shift and what concerns me is my body won’t adapt from the heat to the cold properly.

“But the sports scientists say my body will recognise what extreme I’m in so I hope they’re right!

“It’s the mental side that’s so important. Your body starts sending signals to your brain saying why don’t you just stop and so you have to have that mental strength to ignore the pain and ignore the voices in your head. A lot of it is about distraction too – I make myself look at my surroundings as these places are amazing and the views absolutely stunning.”

What is particularly interesting about McIntosh is she didn’t begin running until she was in her mid-30s.

As a child, she hated PE and into adulthood she did little more than go to the gym to keep fit. But when her husband was being treated for cancer at her local hospital, she resolved to run her first 10k to raise money.

Her running career had an inauspicious start, though.

“I started off running on the treadmill because I was nervous about running in the streets,” she says. “Then I’d sneak outside late in the evening when I knew there wouldn’t be many people about because I was worried about being slow and not very experienced.

“I did the 10k, but pretty badly, and I just thought, this really isn’t for me. But the following year, I decided – I’m going to sign up and see if I can do it better this time. And that was it – I started to run regularly and upped the distances until eventually I got to ultra distances.”

McIntosh reveals she is not a competitive person other than with herself. Her motivation is to discover how far she can push her own boundaries, as well as raise money for Alzheimer Scotland and other charities, for which she has already raised more than £20,000.

She is also keen to use her own story as an example to others that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

“I like to share my passion,” she says. “I’m not saying everyone has to run ultra-marathons but I think I show it is possible to take on a challenge and achieve it. If you have a positive approach and don’t get down about things, anything is possible.”

McIntosh has a few more months of hard training to undertake before she embarks on her double marathon and that time will also be spent attempting to find sponsors for her Global Odyssey.

This task is not as easy as she would have liked though as, often, others do not have the belief that she possesses that seven ultra-marathons in seven days on seven continents is an achievable target. McIntosh, though, has achieved too much already to know that nothing is impossible.