HEADTEACHER Jackie Shanks wore out three pairs of trainers, developed shin splints and an infected toe but that didn't stop her running 100 half marathons and one marathon in as many days.

The Mountjoy head is no stranger to challenges - last year she ran a half marathon every day for 50 days to raise money for school equipment.

This time she's run 1323.1 miles - roughly the equivalent of running from Dorset to Romania - to raise money for the Beaminster special school and Cancer Research.

She said: "I had no rest days at all and ended with a marathon on the final day."

With typical English understatement she said 'It was a little bit tiring'.

She said: "It was OK until about day 80. I ended up with a shin splint on my right leg.

"By about day 85 I had an infected toenail on my left.

"So it was quite lucky in that respect that it levelled my limp up, a pleasing symmetry hit then."

Hard as it was, it was the children at her school that gave Jackie her motivation.

She said: "I had done 85 days and I wasn't going to stop and start again and I was raising money for the school and for Cancer Research.

"My main motivation really was that I see my kids do extraordinary things every day. I see them learn to walk and talk and actually whatever I was going through, especially when you are raising money for Cancer Research as well, was really minimal.

"A little bit of suffering kind of keeps us humble."

Jackie has always liked running and ran competitively before she had her daughter.

She still ran to keep fit but felt she needed some kind of focus.

She added: "I'd seen Eddy Izzard do his absolutely amazing feat of 43 marathons in 51 days and was quite inspired by that.

"I thought what can I do within a time frame of working full time and being a single mum and balancing all of those things. I couldn't have managed a marathon a day though a half seemed relatively sensible."

Looking after a ten-year-old meant that her weekday half marathon runs started at 4am on her treadmill but on weekends she tried to get out around where she lives.

"Because I had to get up at four in the morning and where I live there are no pavements or street lighting it would have been tantamount to suicide running around the lanes."

So far she's raised £860.

Donations can still be made to Cancer Research at her justgiving.com/fundraising/Jackie-Shanks page or to the Friends of Mountjoy sent into the school.