There must be some­thing in testos­terone that goads men into estab­lish­ing silly clubs based on point­less phys­i­cal achieve­ments. A guy I knew in high school spent some time at the south pole, and at a sub­se­quent reunion reported he was a proud mem­ber of the 300 Club. The sole require­ment and ini­ti­a­tion rit­ual is a nude dash from the sauna in the geo­desic dome out­side to the marker for the mag­netic pole and back inside. Mem­ber­ship tri­als are open any­time the dif­fer­ence between those two envi­ron­ments is 300 degrees Faren­heit — usu­ally -100 out­side, 200 above inside.

At the time he told me this, the inter­net as we know it didn’t exist. Is there pos­si­bly a web­site for these shenani­gans?

Well, what do you think?

One of those links is for a women’s ini­ti­a­tion. I take back what I said about men.

Last night’s British-press per­am­bu­la­tions was the first time I ever heard of the Kings­ley Chal­lenge, how­ever.

Described by its orig­i­na­tor as a “near-impossible feat,” it requires those who accept to row a mile, run a mile and ride a mile (horse­back) — in under 15 min­utes. Held in London’s Hyde Park on the sum­mer sol­stice, it’s not open for pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion, prob­a­bly to keep it from being over­run with Type A Yanks look­ing for some cool physical-culture tourism oppor­tu­ni­ties. It sounds like fun, though.

So does the 300 Club, for that mat­ter. The first of those links up there con­tains male nudity, although the naughty bits are so shrouded in steam and frost it’s prac­ti­cally work-safe.

Hol­i­day week­end ahead — the Detroit techno music fes­ti­val and prob­a­bly some boat­ing is on our agenda. Maybe both at the same time. Have a good one, y’selves.