The "Tough Guy Challenge 2010" attracted 5,000 male and female entrants. Each one of them is a special kind of crazy.

If you look at this site with any regularity, you probably have an idea how much I love the Big Picture photography site at Boston.com. It’s consistently the best marriage of photography and the Internet. The essay “Tough Guy Challenge 2010” by Mike King is no exception.

The annual excruciating and almost indescribable contest complicated by fire, barbed wire and mud on an English farm is described as “the safest most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world.” I don’t have the rights to repost any of the images here, but I encourage you to go to their site and have a look. It’s worth it.