Tough Guy!!
For some reason, I’m still not sure why, I have signed up for Tough Guy Winter 2012.
When the organisers describe Tough Guy, they do so using one word: deprivation.
They then use 200,000 more words, to boggle the mind and utterly confuse anybody taking part as to what is actually involved!
“Tough Guy™ is joining 10,000 Surviventurers who willingly hire our team of specialist survival technique volunteers to monitor your progress through 4 hours of body deprivation where your mental ability is tested to withstand ice cold slushing, neck deep in Arctic ice block leaden waters. Tempting hypothermia as it creeps into your body.”
Sounds appealing, doesn’t it? If you’re not already tempted yourself, check out the details:
“Tough Guy™ is the nightmare of being chased by a herd of stallions. Your only escape route is a mighty and revered obstacle course. Built from trees, 15 metres high with Tarzan ropes swinging. No hats and no hook ups. Just pure, organic grip strength from your cold and wet hands.
Belly flop beneath razor wire, the stallions still snorting at your heels, matching your every step. Look deep into the flames before diving through them straight into shoe sucking mud. Then something wakes you, or does it? Were the stallions just a nightmare?
No time to look back, the narrow tunnels beckon. You bravely enter to discover they’re filled with murky water. You can’t see. You can’t breathe. What chance of survival? Grope around and grab that rope. Pull yourself lungs bursting, into the light! You see the sun, or is it just another cruel mirage?
You are faced with a wall climb, as high as a mountain. No visiblity again. Is that smoke, mist or cloud? How do you get down? Take the netting or dive into the freezing lake. You suddenly realise that the sound of stallions behind is fading. You must go on. The only route is through the Arctic water.
A monkey rope, a barbed wire crawl, a rubber snake, a skin ripping snake, you can smell the finish. It’s familiar…..you recognise…..it smells like…..cocoa! You know you’ve earned it!”
In short, it sounds a little like Hell on Earth. It also sounds like quite a lot of fun and, more importantly, one enormous CHALLENGE!
It cost me a small fortune to sign up to the event, so I’m hoping to do well.
You wake.
You are alive.
Bloodied, battered but never beaten.
You are a Tough Guy™!
That’s the plan, anyway.