A drum roll please …

Every child at one time in their life pulls open the Guinness Book of World Records and dreams of someday doing something big enough to be included in the pages.

Palmer High School students Marshall Carter and Levi Lutz decided to do something about it, so they picked up drum sticks and started playing.

On Dec. 1, they unofficially set the new Guinness World Record for "Longest Continuous Drum Roll by a Group," drumming for 12 hours and 30 minutes, eclipsing the previous mark by 30 minutes.

All that remains for the mark to become official through Guinness is the submission and acceptance of the paperwork.

"When we first started planning it, the record was 9 hours and 11 minutes, and then it went to 12 hours before we could do it," Carter, 15, said. "We decided we'd go 12 hours and 30 minutes, and we did it."

But not without a little help. The pair didn't realize how sore they would be.

"About five hours into it is when I got really sore," Lutz, 17, said. "We had my dad go pick up wrist braces. We were more sore than we thought we would be."

The only rule was that the drum roll had to be continual -- they didn't have to drum roll at the same time.

"There couldn't be a break in the sound, so we did it together most of the time to make sure," Carter said. "We would take 30-second breaks and get something to eat, but one of us was drumming the whole time."

Because of the soreness in their wrists, they spent their brief breaks putting Icy Hot on their wrists and getting "mini-massages." They even had some entertainment.

"A lot of my friends stopped by and were there the whole time," Lutz said. "We got some movies, too."

The event began at 8:11 a.m. on Dec. 1, but there was a lot more planning involved before they ever picked up a drum stick.

The first step in the process was to go to the Guinness Web site and submit a claim that they wanted to break the world record.

From there, it is a six- to eight-week process, as Guinness researchers find out what the record is, who owns it and how the inquirer can break the record.

It was during that time that the record went from being 9 hours and 11 minutes to 12 hours. A group of four men from Osh Kosh, Wisc., set the 12-hour mark on Sept. 26, 2003, meaning the boys had to drum even more than they had expected.

After breaking the record, potential Guinness record holders must submit evidence -- in the boys' case, it is a videotape, photographs and signed claims by witnesses -- and wait until Guinness recognizes the record.

Should they be beat, Lutz said he is ready to pick up the sticks and have another go at the world record.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," he said when asked if he plans to "defend" the record. "We were pretty sore, but we'd do it again."

Despite their world record status, the two are still just students.

For Carter, that meant going to band class the very next day after the record-setting drum roll, sore wrists and all. For Lutz, it means lobbying for better grades.

"Hey, if you can mention that I love biology, I can get some extra credit," he said.