Panting across 11 miles of Scottish countryside, participants in this weekend's gruelling Tough Mudder assault course pushed themselves to the limit.
Shocked, doused in cold water and plunged waist deep in mud, the army-designed circuit exercise labels itself "probably the toughest event on the planet."
According its organisers, the assault course "tests your all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie."
Each stop around the circuit sounds more nightmarish than the last. Contestants race through diseal soaked straw set alight (expect flames at least four feet high, warn organisers) and the "nettle to nipples," obstacle where contestants are expected to crawl bare-chested through a patch of "ripe" stingers, sounds particularly gruesome.
Take a look at some of the pictures from the event in Dumfries and Galloway below.