An endurance runner who has completed a 560-mile (900km) run across east Africa believes he has learned valuable lessons to pass on to Scottish athletes.

Doctor Andrew Murray was joined by former Marine Donnie Campbell as they ran around 31 miles (50km) each day at altitude, including a seven-hour run up and down Mount Kilimanjaro.

Much of their trip focused on Kenya, the country which won 17 medals at the 2011 Athletics World Championships, with 10 going to former pupils of St Patrick's High School in the town of Iten in the Rift Valley region.

The adventurers were joined by former world champions John Ngugi and Yobes Ondieki for part of the route to gain an insight into training and techniques.

They also met Irish coach Colm O'Connell, who has trained a number of Olympic champions, and watched the 2013 Kenyan World Championship trials.

Dr Murray, a sports medicine doctor with the sportscotland institute of sport, believes there is no secret to the east Africa region's success, and said Scottish athletes could become champions.

The 32-year-old, from Aberdeen, said: "Running Mt Kilimanjaro and covering fairly chunky distances each day at considerable altitude is difficult, but applying knowledge from the Kenyan champions, and the experts at sportscotland, made it a fair bit easier. Seeing buffalo at close quarters also makes you run faster.

"Given Kenyan athletes are so dominant in middle and long-distance running, people assume there is a genetic link to success and that you have to be from Kenya or East Africa to be successful in these events.

"Neither myself nor any experts I spoke to can find any truth in this. There is no secret. It's about doing absolutely everything right, coupled with a determination to succeed.

"Scottish athletes can win gold in Glasgow 2014 and Rio 2016 by making 'being the best' the clear focus of their ambitions"