Story and photos by Jacqueline Windh

What is it that makes adventure racing, at its core, completely different from other sports such as triathlon, or ultrarunning, or rogaining, or 24 hour mountain biking? There are a lot of sports out there that share aspects of AR – in terms of being off-road and adventurous, and involving multiple disciplines, and in requiring strategy and navigation skills.

I’d argue that the one thing that really makes AR unique is the team aspect of it. Not a relay team, not a cumulative-times kind of team, but a team that must stick together no matter what, and problem-solve in order to keep all members united and moving forward as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Do people who migrate into AR have that team-player attribute genetically programmed into them? Or is it something that they learn along the way, through team experience? I don’t know – I suspect it is a bit of both. What I do know, though, is that AR racers are a unique group of athletes to hang out with – high-achieving Type A’s, for sure, but who also have a real sense of humility and humanity about them.

So it is no surprise to me at all that the Project Athena foundation – a charitable organization aimed at helping women who face life-altering medical conditions to live their athletic dreams – was the initiative of one of Adventure Racing’s greats.

Robyn Benincasa is one of the world’s original adventure racers – achieving podium finishes right from the sport’s earliest days in races that are but legends today: Eco-Challenge (2nd in Utah, 1995 and 1st Borneo, 2000); the Raid Gauloises (1st in Ecuador, 1998), New Zealand’s Southern Traverse (3rd in 2000) and Canada’s Raid the North Extreme (1st in both 1998 and 2001). She is also the only one of those pioneers of AR who still races today – sometimes even with her former team-mates’ sons alongside her! – and her more recent successes include victory in the Bull of Africa in 2005, and podium finishes at PQ (3rd in Moab, 2006, and 2nd in Montana, 2008).

Robyn Benincasa, now 43, has clearly not lost her competitive edge. What she competes for, though is changing.

“Humans are naturally competitive; we want to be challenged” she told me as we hiked down the Grand Canyon’s South Rim this past October. “But we can change the nature of the challenge. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about just getting that one person over the finish line. Here, the challenge is getting all of us across.”

We were on Project Athena’s first fund-raising event: a group of 22 women and men, ranging from elite endurance athletes to just regular semi-active people who wanted to challenge themselves by trying something different. We were attempting to hike the Grand Canyon, South Rim to river to North Rim, and then back again, in two days.

Two and a half years ago, Robyn, who works as a firefighter in San Diego, was diagnosed with osteoarthritis. A genetic predisposition towards hip dysplasia, combined with what she calls TMM (too many miles), had caused her cartilage to wear away. “All of a sudden, I’m told that I can’t run any more because my bones are rubbing together, that I’ll probably never run again.”

Booked in for a hip resurfacing operation, but uncertain about what the outcome would be, Benincasa had what she calls an “epiphany” in the shower. “Facing my AR mortality, I wondered: What next? And I started thinking about an all-female, non-elite team – racing with my girlfriends.” She found she was so drawn to racing with them because of the strength they’ve shown, each of them having come back from serious trauma or illness to the sports they love.

Because of the confidence that she had developed in herself through AR, as well as the strong support network she had through her racing friends, Benincasa knew that she, somehow, would come back too. “And I thought – what if we can bring that kind of confidence to other women who are facing serious illness, if we can be that light at the end of the tunnel, so they can not just be a ‘survivor’, but can thrive, and become an ‘adventurer’ again.” In those five minutes in the shower, Benincasa’s non-profit foundation Project Athena was born. Her racing friends Louise Cooper, Melissa Cleary, Florence Debout and Danelle Ballenge all signed on, joining Robyn as the Project Athena founders team.

Project Athena is supported by Robyn’s athletic sponsors: Merrell, Zanfel, Wigwam, and Akali Water. The corporate sponsors provide all of the financial support for Robyn and her co-founders to attend events, so that all of the monies gained by fund-raising activities can go directly to support the foundation’s “Athenaship” recipients.

Hiking with us in the Grand Canyon was Sandy Kilburg, 41, Project Athena’s fourth grant recipient. Sandy started running five years ago, and her little jogs around the block aimed at shedding a few pounds soon developed into a passion. By late 2007, Sandy had some big ambitions in AR: to complete a 10 hour race, then a 24 hour race, and to top it all of by competing in Montana’s 36 hr Berryman AR in October 2008. But her plans got thrown for a loop when Sandy, a mother of two, turned 40 that January and so went in for her first ever routine mammogram. With a surprise diagnosis of breast cancer, within a month Sandy had had a mastectomy as well as a tissue expander inserted. And along with it, a crash course in cancer treatments, types of breast reconstruction, prepping for surgery, and more.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Project Athena in action several times. I also raced in Costa Rica’s Coastal Challenge 6-day ultramarathon last February – where Robyn and crew were supporting grant recipient Sara Jones, also a breast cancer survivor. Sara’s story opened my eyes to what the diagnosis of a serious disease like cancer means. It is easy for those of us who haven’t been there to imagine the scary part of it – having a disease that has the potential to kill you. But there are so many other aspects of it that just derail your life: having less time for family and friends, having less quality time in general, dealing with the secondary effects caused by the treatments (both chemo and multiple surgeries), being forced to give up the sports and other activities you love and even, in Sara’s case, being forced to give up her job.
“It feels like your feet are just clipped out from under you,” she told me. “I was a fire-fighter for nine years, and I had two businesses which I had to sell. It’s like not having an identity any more. I’m having to reinvent myself.”

What Project Athena gives to its women is far more than some exotic sporting adventure. It is the first step in what Sara called “reinventing herself”. It is an opportunity to take charge of that life that has been derailed – or at least some aspects of that – and to make choices and to set goals. And it is a chance to do that in the safe and supportive embrace of some inspiring women who have been there and done that – and, as Robyn is often heard to say, “want to share the love.”

So that was the mission of our group of 22 as we set out from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, along the Bright Angel Trail, this past October 2nd: sharing the love. It was too dark to see the signs posted at the trailhead, warning hikers not to attempt to hike from rim to river and back in a day. (“Many who tried suffered illness or death”, they said.) But we weren’t planning to hike back anyway – we were going to the other rim. And then back the next day – a total of 50 miles, with about a vertical mile down-then-up each day. There was a nervous chatter within the group as we started down the trail – for many, this was the biggest physical challenge they had ever set out upon.

Officially, we were there for two purposes. Most of the group had come as fund-raising gods or goddesses – which means that they had raised money in order to participate, money that will support future athenaship recipients. And we were there to support this athenaship recipient, Sandy Kilburg.

However, with some inspirational chatter from Robyn (herself still in recovery from her second hip resurfacing operation, only weeks before), our group consolidated very quickly to our purpose: to get everyone across the finish line. We set out in darkness, with an icy wind and temperatures around freezing; mere hours later, we found ourselves alongside the Colorado River in the full sun and temperatures in the high 90s – and with a mile-high climb still ahead of us. The group worked together – stronger members carrying others’ packs or putting them on the “love-line” (that’s Robyn-speak for the tow rope) – and everyone looking out for one another in terms fo food, hydration and salts. And, as the sun set behind us, together we made the North Rim. (Where Robyn and her “Princess of Production” Kris Verdeck somehow managed to have steaming hot pizzas waiting for us at the parking lot!).

The next day, after a well appreciated long sleep in comfy beds all organized by the PA logistics team, we set out for the return trip. The North Rim is 1000’ higher than the South Rim, and the frosted ground crunched under our feet as we gathered for the start. We descended the same North Kaibab Trail that we had come up the day before, but then crossed the river at a different spot to ascend the South Rim by the shorter but steeper South Kaibab Trail. The views from this route are simply stunning – and it was a lovely way to finish such a spectacular journey. And again, the way everyone in the group worked together to help one another was simply spectacular.

In our two days on the trail, we all made such powerful friendships. We learned so much about others, and about ourselves. I am inspired by the men and women that I shared this time with – who have given up addictions to alcohol and hard drugs, and who have made life-affirming changes to treat their body in a healthy way or to be a better parent to their children – yet who were not on this trip because of what they wanted to get from it, but because of what they wanted to give.

And I am especially inspired by Kerrie Larson-Kerkman, who was Project Athena’s third grant recipient. Kerrie, who has a degenerative spinal condition, which means that she has already had a spinal fusion and will face more operations in the future, trained for and ran the Great Wall of China Marathon last May, with the support of Project Athena’s Melissa Cleary. Like many of us, Kerrie has trouble putting into words what it is that Project Athena does; she just holds back tears as she says that it has changed her life in more ways than she can ever tell. I suspect that what she is referring to is far greater than her trip to China. I suspect it is more about having that reason to look ahead: to have goals to set, something to work towards, and therefore a future.

Kerrie is so grateful for what Project Athena has given her, that she became a fund-raising goddess on this Grand Canyon trip – her way of helping to share the love around.

Although there was one official athenaship recipient on this trip, it was quite clear that every single person who participated in this journey was a recipient of that love – learning to share both the gift of giving, and the gift of being able to receive, and to accept help when offered. Just like in AR.

Project Athena will run its second Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim hike this June 2-6, 2010. Potential fund-raising gods and goddesses can find out more at www.projectathena.org.