The Tough Guy Challenge is a regular event held in the dead of winter in Perton, UK where athletes race over an eight-mile course with 21 obstacles along the way. They run through fire, swim through freezing water, crawl through barbed wire, swing from ropes, muck through swamps…And thousands of people sign up for this thing every year. In 2009, there were 600 cases of hypothermia. So I have to wonder, where’s the fire, race directors? We have some brutal competitions here in the Southeast, but I haven’t come across any official race that makes me run through a field of fire, or dive off a set of stairs into a pile of hay. Why the hell not? I’m not saying every 5K should be lined with alligators, but the occasional race that includes swinging from ropes over a pit of fire might be nice. So, race directors, where’s the Southern version of the Tough Guy Challenge? 
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