America's toughest mudder eats bugs to stay fit

Real insect on a fork in a restaurant (iStock)

At 2 a.m., Stefanie Bishop had to slow down. She had been running laps through a grueling 5-mile obstacle course for 14 hours beneath the searing Las Vegas sun. She was severely dehydrated, suffering from heat exhaustion, and so nauseated she couldn’t keep anything down. And, she still had 10 more hours to go.

Somehow Bishop, a 34-year-old Long Island native, managed to keep going — and win the title of World’s Toughest Mudder, considered the championship event in the rugged sport of extreme obstacle racing. She completed the course 17 times in a 24-hour period, more than any other woman competing and placing her 15th overall in the 1,500-person field.

he event, which took place in Nevada in November, airs Sunday on CBS, showcasing Bishop’s journey from exhaustion to exaltation as she faces a terrifying 35-foot jump off a ledge into a lake and battles obstacles such as the “Augustus Gloop,” where participants must wade through a chest-high pit of water and then scramble up a vertical tube, while a cascade of water gushes down.

“I came back from feeling like I was going to puke,” she said. “I did a cartwheel down the finish line.”

Her victory this year came after a difficult 2015. She intended to compete in the World’s Toughest Mudder that year, but had to sideline her plans after injuring her ankle and getting diagnosed with Lyme disease.

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