HIGH above the few clouds in sight, a national hero sits wearing a yellow training jacket. At the top of Mont Semnoz, more than 5500 feet in the air, Mira Rai sits perched in the corner of a large tent pitched in the middle of a small forest, content with her surroundings. The day has long since faded in south eastern France, the flickering candle light across the table and the beaming smile from the 29-year-old's face upon the revelation the sun burnt figure across the table from her is Scottish the only things illuminating the scene.

She proceeds to explain to the group gathered that the latest leg of her incredible life journey is about to take her there in September.

She then asks where it is.

It is a mantra to boldly stride forward into the unknown that has served Rai well. Only a few hours earlier in the alpine town of Annecy, the Nepalese runner, recently voted National Geographic’s Explorer of the Year, was not competing in the Salomon Gore-Tex Maxi Race, a series of events sending ultra runners up and over the vast landscape we were sitting atop. Instead, injury limited her involvement to a mere cheerleader, frantically jumping up and down with kid-like exuberance and cheering ferociously any time any of her team traipsed by in various states of exhaustion.

Her story is remarkable, as is explained while she chuckles at my name being the same as my country. Little over two years ago Rai was still living at home in her remote village over three days’ worth of driving away from Kathmandu. It is from these humble beginnings in remote Nepal that she was plucked by Salomon team manager Greg Vollet, and brought into the fold. Since then she has become a national treasure to many in her homeland, particularly young women and children who now have a shining light of hope to follow. It is a light set to burn bright if she recovers in time to take part in the 50k sky race in Glencoe this September.

“She became a kid soldier,” Vollet told Herald Sport. “She trained with arms when she was just 14. Now, when you really want to talk with her and go deeply with her story, she will say ‘this is just running’.

“The first time I heard about her was when she was running for the first time in her life outside of Nepal. In her country sport is not known. She went to Hong Kong and won the 50k, it was the Asian Championship of sky running. I checked the time, I checked with the people behind her and I thought ‘Wow, it could be nice to have her in the team’.

“She didn’t speak English at all but she has been able to express her real story. When she won in Chamonix at the end of the year she got 5000 Euro of prize money. She went back to Nepal and bought land and 200 chickens. She built a farm for who her family and now they sell eggs. All her family work for her now.

“She broke her knee, she fell three times in a row on her bike. She is always smiling. People say it is the Nepalese spirit because they are living in hard conditions, but they are happy to live. She brings something to the team. Even though she is injured, she visits school and talks to the kids in Nepal. She tells them not to stop dreaming, saying ‘Look at me, it’s possible’. She is going to speak at a big event about women’s conditions in Nepal and saying they can be more than just working in the rice fields, or going to the jungle. Her message is you can do something else.”

Vollet was the architect behind the breaking of bread with Rai in a small wood on top of the world. As well as picking the eco village for Team Salomon's post-race feast, he is the man at the heart of this extraordinary event in what has been his hometown for seven years, the French heartland of trail running. The gruelling 110km showpiece event may sound like most people’s idea of hell – getting up at 1am to drive a section of the race on Saturday morning was tiring enough for this scribe – but Vollet is eager to talk about his, and Rai’s, arrival in Scotland in September when the familiar setting of Glencoe will provide the obstacle.

“Glencoe is totally different,” he explains ahead of his second visit. “The choice of Glencoe is the extreme challenge. We will have challenges there that will be impossible to do here because it’s one of the most extreme races in the world.

“The first climb is around 700metres of elevation gain that you climb with your hands… on a cliff. And if you fall you die. There is no rope, no helmet. Nothing. It is free running. This is the purest essence of the sport. What we love in trail running is the technical side of the sport. Of course, it’s all the values, emotions, feeling and the people you can meet and share with.”

Vollet is right. There is little bravado involved in such exploits. While normal pursuits on foot normally focus on the individual and a never-ending cycle of trying to become quicker and quicker, a sense of camaraderie has defined the past few days here. Rai’s spirit is just one example.

Another would be of one runner who with 10km still to go, was greeted with an embrace and kiss from his small toddler son, who was eventually let go so his father could continue the last phase of his extraordinary slog up another mountain. Skip forward an hour later, and said man was seen crossing the finishing line on the banks of Lake Annecy, carrying his little boy wrapped in his arms.

“The performance is not the most important thing in trail running. The emotion and pleasure you have from the start to the finish is," explained Vollet.

“You register for a race and you are almost scared because you don’t know if you will be able to finish the race. When you start on the line you see plenty of people who will cry because they are scared they won’t see the finish line. But they are there together.”