Charity king Craig is jumping for joy after burpee challenge

A Lanark fitness instructor has successfully completed a year-long fundraising challenge for a Lanarkshire charity.

Craig Curtis, 35, decided to take on the full Year of the Burpee challenge for suicide prevention charity Chris’s House.

That’s 365 days of full chest to floor burpees, beginning with one on the first day and finishing with 365 on day 365 – accumulating a total of 66,795 burpees by the end of the year.

And on November 1, he finally completed the challenge, raising over £28,000 for Chris’s House.

Craig said: “It feels great to have finished. I had a couple of days away and feel really refreshed.

“There is no doubt it was hard mentally but after 300 days I felt like I was on a countdown to finish and that really pushed me on.

“I had a really good group of people, maybe around 10 or 15, who did a lot of days with me and helped me over the line.”

On most days Craig would do the challenge at his fitness studio in Lanark helped by gym goers and friends.

However, he has also enjoyed a number of trips across the country and further afield to promote the challenge and the charity.

Those included Millport, Skye, Ben Nevis and Glencoe in Scotland as well as Gibraltar when he completed his burpees on the plane.

Craig added: “I loved doing the challenge all over Scotland. At that time it wasn’t a lot but it was nice to go out and see a bit of the country.

“My target was to raise £25,000 so we managed to get 3000 past that mark.

“I had a charity night last week to finish off the fundraising and I was delighted that Ann from Chris’s House was able to come along.

“It’s a great charity and hopefully I’ll be able to get down there over the next few weeks.”