MHAIRI MACLENNAN admits that even though she knows it can’t be snatched away from her at the last minute, she still cannot quite believe that she will be representing Great Britain at the European Cross Country Championships, which take pace tomorrow in Samorin, Slovakia.

“Even when my name was announced as part of the team, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “It still feels hard to believe actually – I think it’s because this has been a dream of mine since I was really little. I guess it’s the same with a lot of things - if you’ve been wanting it to happen for so long and then it does, it can be hard to take it in.”

MacLennan secured her place in the British squad by finishing 14th overall in the senior race at the trials in Liverpool last month and as the fourth finisher of the under-23 runners, she was guaranteed selection.

Tomorrow’s race will be the most prestigious of her career so far and she expects there to be a few butterflies when standing on the start line. “I’m feeling pretty nervous,” she said.

“I’ve watched the race back from last year and it does seem really fast so that’s pretty nerve wracking because this will be the biggest race I’ve ever done but I’m really looking forward to it.”

MacLennan hails from Inverness and cross-country was, she says, her first love. While most athletes are track athletes who dabble in cross-country as a sideline, MacLennan only began competing on the track a few years ago, such was her dislike of it. “Cross -county is my true love,” she reveals. “I know that I must be insane to say that but I just love it. It wasn’t until my last year at under-17 that I did any track because I hated it - I’d do the cross-country season in the winter and then in the summer, we’d go on family holidays and I’d climb hills, that’d be it.”

While the tough conditions that cross-country runners must endure are something of a test for most, MacLennan admits that she spends the days leading up to races hoping for the roughest, most miserable weather possible. “When the conditions are tough, it is hard but that’s when I run best,” she said.

“I remember a few years ago driving to a race and it was sleeting and windy and I was thinking ‘yes, this is great’. I always run better when it’s really rubbish weather. I think a lot of that is because some of the conditions I ran in up north were just horrendous - I remember doing sessions with snow up to my knees.”

MacLennan moved to Edinburgh from the Highlands to study Spanish and English Literature at Edinburgh University and as part of her degree, she was required to spend last year in Spain. She was somewhat apprehensive about her year abroad having an adverse effect on her athletics but in fact, that could not have been further from the truth.

“My time in Spain helped me so much,” she said. “In Madrid, there’s the main Spanish training centre and so the standard of athlete was really high.

“There was one girl who had been to the Olympics and also the World Championships earlier this year in steeplechase and so it was amazing to be training alongside that calibre of athlete. It showed me the dedication and commitment you need to get to that level.”

MacLennan did encounter a few setbacks during her Spanish sojourn, including a dose of pneumonia as well as a severe bout of shin splints and it was the latter that persuaded her to concentrate her efforts solely on cross-country. “I sat down with my coach and he asked me what I really wanted to do in running,” she said.

“I said I really wanted to make the GB team but at that point, it was a very distant dream. But he said right, that’s what we’re going to aim for. So over the summer, I was just training for cross-country and it’s amazing to see that hard work pay off. I think because I’ve been working towards it for so long, that’s why it so hard to take in that it’s all worked out.”

MacLennan’s breakthrough into the British team is a major milestone but being a part of the Scottish athletics scene at the moment, such is its quality, is hugely exciting and she admits that she draws inspiration from a number of Scotland’s top runners.

“The atmosphere around Scottish athletics is just amazing at the moment,” she said. “When I was selected for Scotland under-20, I remember telling my friends that it wasn’t anything special because it wasn’t all that hard to get selected whereas these days it’s so tough to get into the team – there is so much competition and I think that’s really healthy.

“Eilish McColgan is a huge inspiration from me because she had so many injuries and she’s managed to come back from them. And Stef Twell has also had her ups and downs but has overcome them and is running really well.

MacLennan will be joined in Samorin by Andrew Butchart and Steph Twell in the senior teams, Erin Wallace in the junior team and Cameron Boyek in the 4x1.5km relay.