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In her 15-year career as a professional adventure racer, Robyn Benincasa has competed in close to 40 expedition-length events -- gnarly, multiday, multisport killers such as Primal Quest and Eco-Challenge.
She has biked through jungles in Borneo, climbed Himalayan giants in Nepal, trekked across lava fields in Fiji, rafted rapids in Chile -- and racked up multiple world championship titles along the way.
In her spare time, Benincasa, 42, is a full-time firefighter in San Diego, on the nation's first all-female crew. She previously competed in college-level diving and gymnastics and raced six Ironman triathlons.
Benincasa might know better than anyone how to push through sore muscles and achy joints.
But at the Adventure Racing World Championships in Scotland in 2007, Benincasa was hit with sudden pain in her hips so severe she almost couldn't finish the race. She had entered the competition with her team as a favorite but wound up barely able to make it across the finish line. She literally picked up each leg and placed it in front of her, dragging herself up the last few mountains of the course.
Back home, doctors diagnosed Benincasa with osteoarthritis and proclaimed her days of professional racing over.
She was crushed. But her competitive spirit wasn't quiet for long. In fact, Benincasa's love of adventure racing is what kept her afloat through the difficult time after her diagnosis. Competing again, "is the mental carrot I dangled in front of myself to get well," she says.
Soon after, Benincasa founded the Project Athena Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping women who've endured medical setbacks achieve their athletic dreams, whether it means climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or running a local 10K. The goal? To encourage survivors not just to survive _ but to thrive in the wake of their diagnoses.
Benincasa recruited four of her closest friends, all survivors and top endurance athletes in their own rights, as cofounders. Adventure racer Danelle Ballengee had suffered a 60-foot fall in the desert that broke her pelvis in five places. She spent three freezing nights out in the elements before her dog found help that saved her life.
Melissa Cleary, a firefighter on Benincasa's squad and veteran of 40 marathons, continues to run with rheumatoid arthritis. And triathletes Louise Cooper and Florence Debout have both survived bouts with cancer.
Thanks in large part to private donations, the foundation has already granted three "Athenaships" in its first full year of operation. The first went to a breast cancer survivor who fulfilled her dream of hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Then in February, Sara Jones, a two-time breast cancer survivor, competed alongside Robyn, Florence and Melissa in a six-day race across the central mountains of Costa Rica.
And in May, Melissa ran the Great Wall Marathon with Kerrie Larson-Kerkman, a 35-year-old with a degenerative spinal condition.
Now, "the organization is growing so quickly that people are coming out of the woodwork to help," Benincasa says.
The simplest way to contribute (and become an Athena-dubbed God or Goddess) is to donate dollars through the group's Web site, projectathena.org. Another more active (and more fun) option is signing on with Benincasa and her pals for a fund-raising trip, such as their three-day ascent of Mount Whitney this September; all of the proceeds go directly to the Athenaship fund.
"We want to cast our net a little wider, to include even more people," Benincasa says. "So we're creating a new racing series for women who want to do something amazing for others -- and do it in an adventurous way."
If all goes as planned, the first AthenaGirl Adventure Challenge will kick off in Benincasa's home base of San Diego early next year -- and expand to other cities coast to coast by 2011.
The multisport event, Benincasa says, "will be about a lot more than just walking. We plan on mixing it up with trail running, hiking, and team challenges like getting each other up and over a wall. We want this to be about quality time spent with your girls and your family -- not about racing."
The theme of the Challenge, appropriately enough, is "Bring your sisters; leave your watch at home."
Benincasa, however, is back in full competition mode. After successful hip-resurfacing surgery in 2007, she has recovered and returned full force to the sport she loves.
This month she'll lead Team Merrell/Zanfel Adventure at Primal Quest Badlands, a 600-mile adventure race across the canyons, caves, and hills of South Dakota. She's in it to win it, of course, but now she has a new goal: raising awareness for the Project Athena Foundation -- and showing other survivors that medical setbacks don't mean the end of athletic goals. Sometimes, in fact, they can lead to better things.
