No Ego, All Engine: The Midlife Advantage in Multi-Day Racing with Kim Beckinsale & Alina McMaster (Episode 243)

Hit Play Not Pause

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.9 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kim Beckinsale and Alina McMaster, both in their mid-50s, race with Mountain Designs Wild Women, along with their teammates Cass Kimlin and Del Lloyd, who are both over 40. The team made history last year by becoming the first all-female team to win the 450 km Legend Expedition Race along Australia’s Great Ocean Road, finishing in 73:09:27 and outracing men half their age. They unpack how women-only team chemistry—less ego, more communication, and strategic towing/help—can be a superpower over multi-day, map-and-compass courses on little sleep. They also share how their training has evolved with age (fewer “flog yourself” sessions, sharper intensity, bigger recovery) and how menopause shows up (heat management, sleep shifts, mood) without slowing performance. Kim and Alina are currently at Expedition Canada 2025, getting ready to tackle a 750+ km trek–bike–paddle course starting September 25. Follow along: www.expeditionracecanada.ca

Kim Beckinsale is a Health & PE teacher at Sunshine Beach SHS with 36+ years in education and prior leadership roles at Coorparoo and Cleveland District SHS. Queensland School Sport Life Member (2013) and Triathlon 30-year service awardee (2022). A triathlete since the early ’90s and adventure racer since 2004, she holds coaching quals across triathlon, athletics, paddling, MTB, orienteering, plus Remote First Aid & CPR. Co-owner of Tri Adventure (f. 2009), which coaches athletes and runs The Wild Women Adventure Race (2012, Australia’s first all-female AR) and The Amazons Australia (2025, first ARWS all-women’s event).

Alina McMaster is Australian Partner at Eventplus and Owner/CEO of AROC Sport, organizing outdoor endurance events. Co-founded Ultra-Trail Australia in 2008 (then The North Face 100), which grew into the world’s second-largest trail event before its sale to Ironman in 2018. A former Australian cross-country ski champion and World Cup/Universiade representative, she dominated domestic multisport (Winter Classic, JLW Challenge, Sri Chinmoy Triple Tri, Jindabyne). In the late ’90s–early 2000s, she and husband Tom Landon-Smith raced on one of the top adventure racing teams globally.

Resources

Historic Win for the Mountain Designs Wild Women Team at Legend Race in Australia, Wild & Co.

AR World Series, Expedition Canada

Wild Women in action video clips.

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Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:14.6	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help
0:21.2	you feel and perform you best, no matter what your hormones are doing.
0:24.9	This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.
0:30.6	Hello, strong feisty women.
0:33.1	I hope you all are well.
0:35.6	So, first off, it was super fun meeting a few of you and signing some books
0:41.1	at the PA Gravel Festival in the Pennsylvania Wilds last week. What a great, great, great time.
0:49.3	I mean, of course, the weather was perfect. That always helps. But while so many women and such fun riding, it really just
0:57.1	warmed my heart. So thanks to everybody who came up and said they liked the podcast and even
1:01.7	brought a couple books. That just always meeting you in the wild is always just the best for me.
1:08.0	So thanks again. I also recently did a, well, it was actually my first
1:14.1	menopause in the workplace presentation at a local law firm. And that was very cool too.
1:20.9	It was cool to see all this work really paying off. And menopause finally coming out of the shadows and into the daylight,
1:30.7	where we can all just talk about it as the natural part of life that it is. So thank you for
1:37.1	having me and we really hope to do more of these because that was a, it was a really great time.
1:43.0	I also very much look forward to seeing a bunch of you in Albuquerque in November.
1:49.7	If you have not checked it out yet, I'm helping to host a 40 plus, a feisty 40 plus strong retreat from November 14th through the 16th at Cassie Neiman's facility in New Mexico.
2:03.9	And Cassie is our resident strength coach, barbell coach, lifting heavy shit coach.
2:09.3	She is just the best.
2:11.3	So we're going to have a two and a half day lifting retreat where you get hands on coaching,
2:15.9	expert insight from Cassie, and just real connection
	...

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