DOUGIE SELMAN will fulfil a lifelong dream when he pulls on a Great Britain vest at the IAU World 100km Championships in India.
The Corstorphine AAC stalwart heads to Bengaluru for the ultra-marathon test having stormed to British title success at the Anglo Celtic Plate/Sri Chinmoy 100km event in March.
He revealed he’s been preparing for the gruelling temperatures and altitude with a training schedule featuring long, lonely runs around Edinburgh and treadmill sessions wearing layer upon layer of clothes.
Dougie, who will take to the start line on December 7, said: “I’ve been a bit of a ‘lone wolf’ with my training. Pretty much all of it has been solo – though, to be fair, I can’t think of many people who would volunteer to join me for 60k around the Meadows!
“The majority of the training itself has been pretty similar to what I’ve done in previous builds, but I’ve added in some heat training given the conditions I’ll be racing in. That has involved a lot of running on the treadmill in plenty of layers, or sitting in a sauna or a hot bath for a while after running. We’ll find out how well it’s worked in the next week.”
Dougie has kept his racing to a minimum since taking the British and Scottish titles in a time of 6:34:28 in Perth. He was part of the Corstorphine AAC team in the 12-stage National Road Relays in Birmingham in April before completing the Antrim Coast half-marathon in August and the Podfather Stirling 10k in September.
He now hopes his dedication to training pays off on his first visit to India.
Asked what he’s most looking forward to, Dougie said: “Pulling on a GB vest. It’s something I dreamed of doing when I was a younger runner then firmly gave up on doing for many years, so I’m just really looking forward to that moment now. I’m trying not to dread anything, but I’m well aware there will be plenty of challenging moments where I’d rather be somewhere else. It wouldn’t be a proper 100k race if there weren’t!
“I’ve never been to India before and this is going to be a very fleeting visit – we arrive on the Wednesday, race on the Saturday and leave on the Sunday. Conditions will be pretty warm. It’s likely to start at around 20C and get up to the high 20s. Bengaluru is also at slight altitude, which may also have a slight impact, but the course is a 5km fairly flat loop by the looks of things.
“Aside from the conditions, trying to regulate my body clock will be the biggest challenge. Bengaluru is five hours ahead but the race will start at 6am, so I won’t want to fully adjust to that anyway. I need to spend a bit more time thinking about how best to manage that.”
The 10-strong Great Britain and Northern Ireland squad have been bonding over Teams calls in the last few months, with the men’s team looking to build on a fifth-placed finish at the last championships in 2022.
But Dougie is not focusing on medals or worrying about rival runners, insisting it’s a waste of much-needed energy.
He added: “Aside from the British team, which is very strong, I don’t know too much about the other athletes involved. There will obviously be a lot of strong runners but, to be honest, I’m not too interested in researching that. I’ll just go out and focus on myself and let the race take care of itself.
“I’m just aiming to do the best that I can. I try not to spend any time thinking about positions or targeting specific times because I don’t think it’s particularly helpful for me. There are so many different things that can come up in a 100k race that could impact that, so it feels like a bit of a waste of your energy to worry about that. I’ll just focus on controlling what I can control and be open-minded about what that might lead to. I find both confidence and sense of freedom with that mindset.”
And with the British team hotel serving up the dishes required to fuel the athletes’ endeavours, Dougie says he will be “careful” and avoid any local delicacies – for a while at least.
He said: “I’ll save the curries for post-race.”
Photo Credit – Rob Sara