AN INSPIRATIONAL head teacher has completed his first marathon at the age of 50, hoping to set an example to his students.

Craig Burgess, head teacher at Woolston Community Primary School, decided to take on the Manchester Marathon last weekend after having only completed half marathons before.

The 50-year-old, who is originally from New Zealand, underwent nine months of training for the massive 26-mile run, spurred on by setting an example to his students and raising money for charity.

“I always say to the kids at school it’s good to set yourself challenges,” he said.

“It does no harm for the children to see that you’re setting personal challenges yourself too and that it’s hard.”

Craig, who lives in Appleton, has been head teacher at Woolston Community Primary School for the past seven years and has lived in Warrington since 1997.

He was previously the head teacher at Appleton Thorn Primary School.

“One of the big things at school is teaching resilience and that not giving up is a massive deal,” said Craig.

“But that failure isn’t a bad thing, sometimes failure actually leads to success because you learn from it.”

The challenge of setting such an example to his pupils wasn’t enough, as Craig also decided to raise money for Alzheimer’s Society.

“It put more pressure on because you don’t want to let people down as you’re not just running for yourself, you’re running for a good cause,” said Craig.

“But it does give you that push thinking that this is going to make a difference to people’s lives.

“Dementia is a horrible disease so if this makes a difference to anyone, then it’s worth the pain.”

Craig chose to run and raise money for Alzheimer’s due to the fact he has a close family member struggling with the disease.

“What I now know about dementia is that doesn’t matter what job you had, or how healthy you were in your life – when it hits people its horrendous,” said Craig.

“You see people die several times in front of you because the person that was there, isn’t there anymore.”

Craig managed to raise £1,400 for Alzheimer’s Society on his Just Giving page, which you can donate to here.

He ran or jogged for the entire four hours and 43 minutes it took to complete the marathon on Sunday and was cheered on by family and friends across the route.

“It’s probably one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life,” he said.

“But I’m delighted that I did it.”