IMAGINE running for 24 hours, non-stop. It’s almost inconceivable, isn’t it? For Debbie Martin-Consani though, it’s just another competition.

Tomorrow, the 41-year-old will compete in the 24-hour European Championships in Albi, France, but despite having past experience of the event, she admits she never feels completely at ease with the thought of running for so long.

“I’m feeling good but the thought of running for 24 hours is always daunting,” she says. “Regardless of how fit you feel, it’s a long time and a lot can happen.

“I’m quite experienced now but I think that makes it worse because I know what to expect.”

Martin-Consani may feel ready for tomorrow’s European Championships but there is only so much preparation that any individual can do for such an event. By the end of the race, Martin-Consani estimates that she will have been awake for 36 hours and the toll that running for such a length of time takes on your body is incalculable.

“You don’t ever get sleepy tired during the race, you just get physically exhausted,” she says. “Your legs are completed buckled but even afterwards, I can’t sleep for days because I’ll still be buzzing.

“When the race finishes, you crash hard but then you’re wide awake. I think it’s a combination of adrenaline, sugar and caffeine.”

The physical exertion of running for 24 hours is severe but the mental suffering is equally harsh. In almost all endurance events, athletes hit a wall at some point of the race or another, but when the race lasts 24 hours, there is more than one mental block that needs to be overcome.

Martin-Consani has a mightily impressive list of running achievements, including completing the infamous Spartathlon race in Greece, and her wealth of experience has taught her that even though during the race she will, at times, feel horrific, she will come out the other side sooner or later.

“Ultra-running is such a massive roller-coaster and you always go through peaks and troughs,” she explains. “I can hit a massive low and then an hour later, I’ll be buzzing and just loving it. In a 24-hour race, I always seem to hit a low at about eight hours. But I just need to ride out that tough spell.”

The Consani name is somewhat renowned within the field of ultra-running. Her husband, Marco, is also a highly respected athlete and Martin-Consani says that having a partner who understands the demands of her particular sport is invaluable.

It is perhaps unsurprising that Martin-Consani married a fellow ultra-runner, as endurance athletes are a different breed.

“Ultra-running is full of people with addictive personalities and it’s a pretty addictive sport,” she says. “I like to keep pushing my boundaries and do things that scare me. It’s about testing yourself to see what you can achieve. I keep finding races that are a bit more nuts and that keeps me going. Plus, I get to see some amazing places and meet some great people.”

Martin-Consani was a latecomer to running. As a youngster, she dabbled with almost every sport but it wasn’t until she was in her mid-twenties that she started running. She began training for the Glasgow Women’s 10k with some work colleagues but she certainly didn’t fall immediately in love with the sport.

“When one of the girls first mentioned the 10k, I thought: ‘That’s nearly six miles, that’s so far,’” she laughs, “I went for my first run with my flatmate along Hyndland Road – we went in the dark so that no one could see us. We were doing one minute on, one minute off and a minute seemed to last forever.”

After completing her inaugural 10k though, she developed a taste for the sport and that soon grew into a real passion. However, she soon discovered that if she wanted to compete with the very best, she had to move up the distances as, she explains, she doesn’t have the raw speed for shorter races. Which is how she ended up doing ultra-marathons.

Tomorrow’s European Championships will be Martin-Consani’s fifth GB vest and with a team title on the line as well as individual medals, the pressure is on the Scot to run well.

While she has no specific targets with regard to final placings, she admits she would like to break her current personal best of 220km. And while her primary focus at the moment is tomorrow’s event, she adds that she has already begun plotting her schedule for next year.

“In 2017, if I get selected, I want to run the 24-Hour World Championships. And after that, I’ve got a massive bucket-list of races I’d like to work my way through. I’m always scheming because there’s so many new races popping up and I just want to do everything.”