There is no prize for winning this race, not even a T-Shirt ! However, that and the entry fee ranging from $100 to $500 hasn’t prevented thousands of people from entering the Tough Guy cross-country race every year. There is one very Tough Guy race held in the depths of winter in January and another in relatively balmy weather of July.
All that the participants gain at the end of agonizing test of physical and mental endurance is the satisfaction of having completed a grueling obstacle course spread over 13 kilometers. Launched in 1986 by a man called Billy Wilson (he and his wife are known as Mr. and Mrs. Mouse!) and set in 150 acres of farmland in Wolverhampton, England ,the Tough Guy race raises funds to help rehabilitate destitute and delinquent children.
The race begins with a 9 – km "warm-up" that involves a hill slalom – running up and down several hills; an Elephant graveyard – climbing into and out of 2-m-high cement containers filled with horse dung; the Gurkha Grand National – wading through endless waist-deep pits of freezing mud dotted with used tyres; and the Tiger – scrambling over 9-m-tall towers of netting threaded with stinging electric tape, some with a charge strong enough to stun a bull .
People who survive these enter the Killing fields – a 22-obstacle course that includes swimming through underwater tunnels and narrow sewer pipes.
All runners have to enter a Death pit and sign a death warrant at the starting line! Grim though this may sound, no one has yet died proving he is a Tough Guy. Fractures and hypothermia cases are aplenty and hundreds drop out midway. Yet the race attracts ever more people (the 2007 event had more than 5000 entries) and there are some who make it a point to return year after year!