“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Boyzone 1999
I’m the type of guy who’ll wait for their dad to take that massive spider outside. I am the type of guy who will see some iron and won’t have the urge to pump it. I am the type of guy who has that infamous story of how a girl made him cry when he was drunk in first year. I’m the type of guy who when the going gets tough, I leave. I am not a tough guy.
However, on the 27th of January I shall be partaking in the 2013 Tough Guy Challenge along with 14 other brave Derwenters in freezing winter conditions. Tough Guy is an annual endurance event, which has been running since 1987 in Perton, Staffordshire. It is dubbed ‘the safest and most dangerous taste of mental and physical pain, fear and endurance’. Five thousand competitors willingly take part each year from all over the world, aiming to prove that they are indeed ‘Tough Guys.’
The Tough Guy race is staged over a course of between seven and eight-miles. It consists of a cross-country run with over 75 obstacles with names such as Nettle Bracken Maze, Ghurka Grand National and Man Greedy Swamp; referring to a hillside of two metre high Nettle Bracken and a ‘soothing’ leech pond. This is followed by an assault course acclaimed as the toughest such challenge on earth: The Killing Fields – where contestants have to swim in icy water, run through fire, dodge electronically charged cables, and crawl underneath barbed wire.
The race organisers claim that running the course involves risking barbed wire, cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, electric shocks, sprains, twists, joint dislocation and broken bones. So it’s no surprise that before beginning the race, each participant must sign a ‘death warrant’, which acknowledges the risks and dangers, and which the organisers claim absolves them of any legal liability in the case of injury. In the 2001 challenge, 700 people suffered from hypothermia and over the years two people have died attempting to complete the assault course. Tough Guy is aptly named. This is a truly monumental undertaking, which will test us to our limits.
We are putting ourselves through this ordeal all in the name of charity. It will surely be one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of our lives. With your help and support we are hoping to raise £1,500 for YUSU RAG, which raises money on behalf of six fantastic charities.
If you would like to donate any money to the cause it would be greatly appreciated.
You can follow the link below to do so: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/derewentdoestoughguy
To follow our progress see the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Derwent-Does-Tough-Guy-2013/118741628300792