EP 12 | Alessa Sophia Mensch - female hormones, mental health & Big Air kitesurfing

Alessa Sophia Mensch is a professional Big Air kitesurfer, GKA tour competitor, Brunotti and Naish team rider, and the co-founder of a women's health app currently in development and launching in December. She's also one of the most thoughtful people in the sport when it comes to the intersection of female health, performance, and mental wellbeing — and this episode goes deep on all of it.

The conversation covers a huge amount of ground. They talk about what it took for Alessa to learn to rest — really rest — after years of training alongside male athletes on their schedule, eating like them, sleeping like them, and wondering why it wasn't working the same. They get into endometriosis, hormonal cycles and what the research actually says about how the female brain-body connection affects energy, fear and performance across the month. Alessa shares how she restructured her own training to stop fighting her cycle and start working with it — and why that changed everything.

Then there's the app: a female athlete health tracker she's building with her co-founder Julia, designed to help women understand and optimise for their cycle without selling their data. There's also a long thread on the mental side of competing — comparing yourself to others, performing in front of male peers without feeling judged, what it means to crash like a kook in front of pros and do it anyway, and why the most important comparison you can make is only ever with yourself. Plus Brunotti, the Naish House movie, learning to jump on your weak side, and a very honest conversation about why she doesn't share more of the difficult stuff on social media.

One of the longest and most substantial episodes of Mermaid Mode. Worth every minute. 🌊

Find Alessa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_alessasophia/

Follow Alessa's app development: https://www.instagram.com/herphase.app/

00:00 Intro

01:41 Meet Alessa — rest, recovery & recharging

08:09 Training with guys: FOMO, guilt & what's actually in our heads

13:24 The hormonal cycle no one talks about in kitesurfing

14:38 Living with endometriosis as a pro athlete

22:28 What's missing in women's medical research

28:01 Introducing Her Phase — the app Alessa is building

39:09 Atomic Habits, overthinking & the mindset shift

45:16 Choosing kiting over a degree — going all in

51:21 Finding your people: the mom, the instructor, the Cape Town call

1:00:48 Brunotti & Nash — what a great sponsor actually looks like

1:08:44 The Antidote to Chaos film project & creative freedom

1:09:41 Being a couple in the same sport — Jason, Luca & the crew

1:16:12 Competition culture & why the women's fleet is special

1:24:32 Weak side training, right foot forward & the language analogy

1:31:58 You can tell a good kitesurfer by the way they crash

1:37:52 Kitesurfing with flow — style, basics & feminine riding

1:40:25 How fast can you actually progress? The truth about pros

1:46:30 What the highlights don't show — injuries, vulnerability & social media

1:52:08 Wrapping up