113. Shawn Cheshire on Riding the Divide

On this episode of the podcast, I bring you a conversation with Shawn Cheshire, United States Army military veteran and para-athlete.

This past June, Shawn and her team tackled the Tour Divide. The Divide is hard enough, but for Shawn, who lost her sight due to a head injury sustained at her job as a paramedic, it was the hardest thing she has even done. Personally, I can’t even fathom the difficulty of having to traverse some of the terrain on the Divide blind. The constant surface variations and variable weather conditions cracked even the most hardened athletes, but Shaun finished the route in just over 50 days.

Shawn grew up a multi sport athlete but losing her vision didn’t stop her. She has competed at National and International levels in multiple para-sports, including adaptive rowing, adaptive biathlon, tandem road para-cycling, and tandem track para-cycling.

In this episode, we chat about her background in sport, her time in the US Army and the events that led to her losing her vision. We discuss the challenges she faced while overcoming this set back and how it almost drove her to the brink of taking her own life. Shawn also shares stories from the Divide and some of the logistical challenges her and her team faced while trying to get her to Antelope Wells in one piece.

It was an honour and privilege to be able to connect with Shawn and to share this with all of you. I hope you are moved and inspired like I was by her grit and determination. To learn more about Shawn, you can visit her website http://www.shawncheshire.org/