News

DCU students break Guinness World Record for marathon

30 March 2011

At a charity event on behalf of UNICEF, students of the MBS in Marketing successfully challenged the Guinness World Record for running the distance of a marathon. This was an official Guinness World Record attempt, and in accordance with the rules, an adjudicator from Guinness World Records attended the event, issuing the students with their official certificate on the day.

In order to successfully challenge the existing record, a group of 422 runners each ran 100 metres and completed the marathon distance in 1 hour 57 mins and 13 secs, beating the previous record by just under 15 minutes.

The world record attempt was organised by the students as part of a course assignment to raise funds for UNICEF.  They were asked to design and stage a fund-raising event as part of an exercise in developing their team-working skills.  Throughout the course, the students work with client organisations to solve real-world problems or to exploit a real-world opportunities.

Other events have been organised by the class and include a Tag Rugby event on 2 April in Wanderers Rugby Club at which 12 companies will take part in a one-day blitz, a benefit production of The Vagina Monologues at the Helix, and a Children's Race for Life, where the children raise as many 20cent coins as possible towards the cost of life-saving vaccines for children in the third-world.