Who is a tough guy?

The Tough Guy Challenge, an annual event to raise money for the Autistic society, was celebrated last Tuesday January 30, 2007. This event is in aid of charity and is open to individuals and teams. The 10 mile cross country run involved negotiating 25 obstacles en-route including plunging into an ice-cold lake, jumping over burning bales of hay and crawling through mud under barbed wire. It's a survival ordeal and a test of physical and mental endurance designed to take you beyond your limits on torture rack obstacles known as The Killing Fields, following a wild terrain warm up. Believe it or not, people train for this event way in advance just to be able to make it to the finish line.

I understand the contestants pay to participate in this event and the proceed goes to help autistic kids and their parents. However, what I do not understand is why do people do this idiotic stuff like running through burning bushes and swimming through ice cold river to win this challenge for the title of Tough Guy? What are they proving and to whom are they proving it?

To me, tough guys are the parents and the siblings of the autistic children that day in and day out are battling with their situation with no reprieve. These tough guys are constantly going through hoops of fire and ice and God knows how much more and they endure it mentally and physically better than most other people, yet never titled as tough guys and for sure never recognized publicly or in newspapers around the world. They just do it, because they have to, and not because they chose to. The way I see it, the tough guys do not need to prove anything either to others or themselves.

So the question still stands; why should someone be called a tough guy while he walks through fire and self inflicts pain and burn and other sorts like that? God knows that I have a better name for these kinds of people.