Of all Dougie Selman’s talents, perhaps his most useful is his ability to switch off his brain entirely for prolonged periods of time.

It’s a skill that, when you’re running for hours on end, is not just handy, it’s necessary.

Selman is the British champion over 100km and of all the physical attributes needed to cover such an extreme distance, it’s the Scot's capacity to conserve his mental energy that has contributed significantly to his rise to the top of the British ranks of ultra-running.

“Being able to switch my mind off definitely helps when you’re running 100km,” he says.

“For long periods, I’m able to not think and not get too emotional about anything.

“That’s really important because if you’re running for six hours, you just can’t concentrate for the whole time and also, you don’t want to be using up energy stressing about things. So the longer you can switch off for, the better.”

Selman remains something of a novice in the ultra-running ranks.

His athletic career began as a middle-distance runner, with the Corstorphine AAC athlete earning several Scottish junior vests.

As he reached his twenties, he realised he’d plateaued over 800m and 1500m and so began moving up the distances to 5km, 10km and half marathon.

By his early 30s, though, Selman had lost much of his motivation for running. 

Indeed, his primary interest, in a running sense, was as chief cheerleader for his wife Jenny, who coincided her rise onto the international stage with Selman’s dip in motivation.

And with the Edinburgh man believing his chance of becoming a GB internationalist was gone, he began dabbling in ultra-running for no reason other than to spice up his training.

“Jenny had a great spell in 2021 and 2022 and it was great to be a part of all of that - in that period, I was much more excited about watching Jenny run than running myself,” the 35-year-old lawyer says.

“I’d gone from running well and really competing with the best in Britain to getting further and further behind the level I’d been at as a junior.

“I never considered not running anymore but I’d given up any kind of aims of competing on the international stage so I just wanted to find something that would freshen things up for me and motivate me to train.

“That’s where the idea to move to ultra-running came from but I had no expectations of how I would do.”

Selman’s debut over 100km came last spring, when he dipped under 6 hours 48 minutes but almost as soon as he’d crossed the line, he knew he had a faster time in him.

Cue a full 12 months of training for this year’s Sri Chimnoy 100km Anglo-Celtic Plate, which doubled as the British Championships and Selman turned out to be correct in his belief that he could better his debut time.

By crossing the line in 6 hours 34 minutes 28 seconds – just ten seconds ahead of the second-placed finisher - he not only became British champion but also earned selection for GB for the World 100km Championships, which take place next weekend in the Indian city of Bengaluru, where he will be joined in the GB team by his fellow Scot, Chris Richardson of Metro Aberdeen Running Club.

With Selman having had nearly eight months since his selection was confirmed, he’s enjoyed ample time to prepare for what will be considerably different conditions to those he’s used to in his home city of Edinburgh.

“I feel good and I’m where I’d like to be fitness-wise but as I’m still relatively new to 100k running, I’ve had to think carefully about how to be ready for India,” he says.

“Having such a long build-up does mean there’s a lot of pressure on that one day but I like having a long time to prepare because it’s given me time to make real fundamental changes to my running.

“And I’ve been trying quite a few things to prepare for the heat. 

“I went to Portugal at the start of October and since I got back from there, I’ve been doing my training wearing lots of layers – sometimes as many as six layers plus a hat and tights so I go through a lot of clothes. 

“I really don’t know how well that will have prepared me so I’ll just have to see how I feel when I get 80km in and it’s 25 degrees.”

Despite being in his mid-thirties, Selman is very much still on the rise in endurance terms.

He’s reluctant to set many targets for the future until he’s got his World Championships debut under his belt but he admits knowing he likely hasn’t hit his peak yet is an encouraging place to be career-wise.

“There’s lots of things I’m interested in which is sometimes my biggest problem when it comes to running,” he says.

“I’d like to run quicker in the marathon – I want to run 2:19 - but I’ll probably give myself a good few weeks to let myself recover before I get back to training and decide what I want to really focus on next year.”