Robin Benincasa

Robyn Benincasa is an American endurance racer, adventure racer, author, and motivational speaker. She was a competitor in several seasons of the Eco-Challenge: The Expedition Race reality television show. Her team won the 2000 Eco-Challenge in Borneo. She went on to found or co-found two companies focused on team-building for corporate clients. She is the founder of Project Athena, a nonprofit organization that helps women who have experienced medical challenges to fulfill their athletic ambitions. She holds three Guinness World Records.

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While serving as a firefighter in San Diego, California, Benincasa became a successful endurance racer and triathlete. In 1995, she was a member of the second American team to complete the Raid Gauloises adventure race.[1] In 1997, she was on the Mountain Dew-sponsored team in the Discovery Channel Eco-Challenge in Queensland, Australia.[2] She was on the Eco-Internet team in 1999 and 2000, and contributed to that team's first-place victory in 2000. She was dropped from the team in 2001 due to a struggle with asthma brought on by exercise and altitude during a race in Switzerland. She was treated for the ailment, and stepped in to join Team Earthlink, which had lost one of its members for the 2001 Eco-Challenge in New Zealand. Benincasa and Team Earthlink finished in fourth place.

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Benincasa has earned three Guinness World Records.[4] Her first was in 2010, for the farthest distance travelled by a woman by canoe or kayak on flat water.[5] In 2011, Benincasa set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance travelled by a woman by canoe or kayak in 24 hours on moving water. She kayaked 371.92 kilometres (231.10 mi) on the Yukon River in Canada.[6] She secured her third Guinness Record in 2014, for the greatest distance travelled by a woman on a stand-up paddleboard in still water in 24 hours, covering a total of 146 kilometres (91 mi). She accomplished this by paddling laps around an island in Huntington Harbor in Huntington Beach, California

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In 1998, Benincasa, fellow-firefighter and Eco-Internet teammate Ian Adamson, and ultra-marathoner Liz Hafer founded Colorado Adventure Training. The three co-founders brought their experience as teammates in endurance races to build team-building experiences that encourage participants to learn to ask each other for support and to provide it.[7] Following Adamson's dropping Benincasa from the Eco-Internet team in 2001, Benincasa ended her relationship with the company. She later founded Human Synergy, Inc., also focusing on corporate team-building, using a framework of "Eight Essential Elements of Human Synergy."[8] In 2012, she published the book How Winning Works : 8 Essential Leadership Lessons From The Toughest Teams On Earth