Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Book cover.

Back to front: a new twist on the sponsored run

Howard Lake | 21 September 2010 | Blogs

Sonia O'Sullivan on the BUPA Great North Run
Sonia O’Sullivan on the BUPA Great North Run

Covering the distance in a half-marathon or marathon is a pretty impressive achievement. But friends and family might start to get inured to the same old request – “please sponsor me for running 13/26 miles”.

So I was pleased to see the different approach to fundraising taken by Irish athlete Sonia O’Sullivan’s at at this Sunday’s Bupa Great North Run.

She chose to be the very last competitor to start the half-marathon, and asked people to donate money to her chosen charities for every runner she overtook during the 13.1-mile race. By the time she had finished, she had overtaken 25,313 runners!

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Great Fundraising Organizations, by Alan Clayton. Buy now.

She was raising money for UK blood cancer charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and is a regular runner with the charity’s TV Times celebrity running team. O’Sullivan was also fundraising for the Children’s Leukaemia Association at Cork’s Mercy University Hospital in Ireland.

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