Okay kids, today's activity is to go down to your local Pizza Hut, have the oven set for 261° and insert your body into it. The tips of your ears start to ignite. The backs of your arms scream. Your throat burns as if somebody had stuck a tiki torch down it. Your lips feel bitten by large, unseen raccoons. And you haven't hit 30 seconds.

Now do it for 10 minutes or more, and that's what it's like to compete in quite possibly the world's dumbest sport: the Sauna World Championships.

[...]

In each opening heat only two of the six moved on. Our friend Rick Ellis from New York went 8:03, to advance. I was waiting to congratulate him when I noticed something awful. There were two big patches of skin missing on his upper lip, just under his nostrils.

"Dude, were you breathing through your nose?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?" he said.

"Your skin is all gone under your nose! It's burned off!"

He felt his upper lip in horror. He ran to the mirror. The tops of his ears were split open and bubbling. Under his arms and on his back were bright purple patches. His forehead was painted bright red and blistering in front of his eyes. "Man, I'm burning up. Even my tongue is burned." His wife begged him to quit, but he refused. Said he had trained too hard. She shook her head.