Dougie Selman is a former Loch Ness Marathon champion (photo via Loch Ness Marathon)
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By Peter Jardine
Running has no limits and can take you all kinds of places – both physically and mentally.
That’s the over-riding theme in the latest short documentary in our series on athletics in Scotland created by Urbane Media.
Ultra runner Dougie Selman, the Scottish Record holder over the 100k distance, is the focus as he talks about his running journey.
The Corstorphine AAC athlete, who raced 800-1500m on the track a number of years ago, won the British title at 100k in Perth in 2024. he clocked 6:34:28 and with that performance is third in the Scottish all-time list for the ultra event.
‘I think running is the sort of sport where you can always have an aspiration,’ he tells videographer Calum McCready in our new film.
‘There’s always something that you can aim for, and I don’t really tend to struggle for motivation to get out the door.’
Dougie, who is coached by Lewis Walker, explains how training for 100k races presents obvious challenges in physical capacity.
‘Running 100k is what my current event is, but I guess I just view myself as a runner,’ he says.
‘I think to someone who doesn’t want to run 100K, it seems like it’s quite hard to explain to them why you enjoy it. It still seems quite like an overwhelming thing to plan to do, but once I get into the training block and into the race itself, I get more and more involved in it.
‘I guess it’s just one of the quirks of who I am. You can do a lot of training for it, but it’s only really when you get to the race that you find out what it’s really like.’
Dougie wins British 100k title by ten seconds
Photo by Rob Sara
Regular training weeks hit a high mileage, clearly.
‘You have to have a lot of time on feet training for it,’ adds Dougie, who represented GB and NI at the World 100k Champs.
‘You also need to just try and find ways of conditioning your legs to be able to run for six and a half hours on the road.
‘You’re trying to find different ways of doing that without actually running 100K because the recovery cost of doing that is really high.
‘So I try and do runs on hilly terrain. I’ll try and do runs when I’m tired; so running quite a long way on one day and then quite a long way again the next day.’
Dougie (right) with GB and NI team-mate and fellow Scot Chris Richardson at the World 100k Champs in December 2024
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