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GET TO KNOW SHAWN
Shawn Cheshire is a U.S. Army veteran, former EMT-Paramedic, Paralympian, adventurer and complex trauma survivor. After sustaining a traumatic brain injury that left her completely blind, Shawn found herself facing a life she never expected—and a mental health journey that would ultimately become just as significant as any finish line, summit or record she would pursue.
Shawn's story is not simply about overcoming blindness. It is about trauma, survival, healing and learning how to choose life again.
Shawn served eight years in the U.S. Army as a helicopter armament systems mechanic. After leaving the military—and an abusive marriage—she returned to school and became an EMT-Paramedic, building a career around helping others.
Then, in December 2009, everything changed.
While caring for a combative patient during a snowstorm, Shawn sustained a traumatic brain injury that ultimately left her completely blind with cortical blindness. The years that followed were some of the darkest of her life.
Losing her vision was only one part of what Shawn was carrying. She was also confronting years of complex trauma. This was also the start of some of the hardest work she will ever have to face; understanding her mental health, her past and who she wanted to become. With the encouragement of people who believed in her, and the unbreakable resilience that powered her soul, Shawn began to adjust to a radically different way of moving through the world. It was there that Shawn was introduced to adaptive sports.
Her competitive spirit ignited. Movement gave her somewhere to put the pain, the anger, the fear and the fight that had always lived inside her. As she embraced para-sports, she was also doing the much less visible work of CPTSD therapy and trauma recovery.
Sport didn't erase Shawn's trauma. It became part of how she learned to move through it.
Over time, the physical challenges and the internal work began to intersect. Racing, cycling, skiing, hiking and pushing herself into unfamiliar territory became about much more than athletic achievement. They became opportunities to rebuild trust in herself, discover what she was capable of and reclaim parts of herself that trauma and blindness had taken away.
BREAKING MORE THAN RECORDS
Shawn went on to compete nationally and internationally in adaptive rowing, biathlon, tandem road para-cycling and tandem track para-cycling. She became a 13-time U.S. Para-cycling National Champion, represented the United States at the inaugural Invictus Games in London in 2014 and competed for Team USA at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio.
But after Rio, Shawn began pursuing something bigger than medals.
She wanted to challenge the assumptions society places on people who are blind. What COULD happen if she stopped accepting other people's definitions of what blindness was supposed to look like? What if she DID the things everyone assumed she couldn't?
That question has shaped nearly every adventure since.
For Shawn, breaking records has never been only about being first or fastest. Every challenge is an opportunity to confront limitations—both the ones she has had to work through internally and the ones the world has tried to place on her.
Her adventures have taken her through the depths of the Grand Canyon, across the United States on a solo bike, along the rocky, mountainous path of the Continental Divide, onto Mount Everest and around Mount Rainier's Wonderland Trail. She has completed challenges no blind person had attempted before, often developing entirely new ways of navigating the world through sound, trust, training and an unwillingness to accept "that's impossible" as an answer.
Today, Shawn continues to train, compete, explore and do the work on her mental health. She is an avid cross-country and downhill skier, cyclist, biathlete, hiker and adventurer—and, every once in a while, you may even find her on a golf course.
Her story is still being written.
TELL SHAWN A BLIND PERSON CANNOT DO SOMETHING AND SHE WILL PROVE YOU WRONG.
THE JOURNEY
2013 — TEAM USA
Shawn qualified on a tandem bike for the U.S. Para-cycling National Team, beginning a seven-year career racing for Team USA. She would go on to win 13 U.S. Para-cycling National Championship titles across road and track.
2014 — INVICTUS GAMES LONDON
Shawn was selected to represent the United States at the inaugural Invictus Games in London.
2016 — RIO PARALYMPICS
Shawn represented Team USA at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, competing in women's tandem road cycling.
2017 — U.S. ARMY WOMEN'S HALL OF FAME
Shawn was inducted into the U.S. Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame.
2018 — GRAND CANYON RIM TO RIM TO RIM
Shawn became the first known blind woman to complete the Grand Canyon's Rim to Rim to Rim route with three sighted guides—45 miles and approximately 22,000 feet of elevation change in 24 hours and 15 minutes, breaking the blind man’s record by almost 4 hours!
2020 — DIRTY THIRTY
Shawn completed the 50-mile Dirty Thirty gravel bike race in Michigan riding a single bicycle rather than a tandem. She navigated by following music played from a speaker on the bicycle of a sighted rider ahead of her. It was the first known time for a blind person to complete a bike race on a single bike.
2021 — PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC
Shawn took that concept across an entire continent. Riding her own road bike and navigating by sound, she cycled approximately 3,700 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean over 60 days, becoming the first known blind person to cross the United States riding a single bicycle.
2022 — THE TOUR DIVIDE
Shawn became the first known blind person to ride the Tour Divide, one of the world's legendary mountain bike-packing routes. Beginning in Banff, Canada, and following the Continental Divide toward Mexico, Shawn rode a single mountain bike while navigating by sound. Over 50 days, she faced mud, snow, rain, hail, freezing temperatures, triple-digit heat and 400,000 feet of elevation change.
2023 — MOUNT EVEREST
Shawn attempted to double summit Mt. Everest and Mt. Lhotse with the goal of becoming the first blind woman to reach the summit. While attempting to reach Camp 1, extreme altitude caused significant damage to her ears and severe hearing loss. She has since undergone multiple ear surgeries and now wears hearing aids. She hopes to return to Everest one day.
2024 — THE GRAND CANYON, SOLO
Legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner had reportedly made a comment to someone Shawn knew suggesting that blind climbers and outdoor adventurers would never be taken seriously because they would always require a guide. Shawn took that personally. She returned to the Grand Canyon and completed an unsupported SOLO Rim-to-Rim crossing without a sighted guide—navigating the North Kaibab to South Kaibab route entirely on her own. Twenty-three miles. 10 hours, 58 minutes. And another assumption about blindness left somewhere on the trail behind her.
2025 — THE WONDERLAND TRAIL
Shawn became the first blind person to complete Washington's Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier. The approximately 93-mile route includes more than 20,000 feet of elevation gain and some of the most demanding terrain in the Pacific Northwest. Shawn completed it in 2 days, 23 hours and 34 minutes.
And she's nowhere near finished.
Blind AF
An unflinching, emotionally raw story of courage, transcendence and the healing power of self-belief, BLIND AF tells the journey of Shawn Cheshire, a blind female Paralympic champion and multiple world-record holder as she becomes the first blind person to ride a single, non-tandem bike across the United States—3700 miles in 60 straight days—while confronting painful truths about her past that she spent a lifetime trying to outrun.
Driven as much by the determination to live independently as by the restlessness and vulnerability borne of her complex PTSD, Shawn forges a brave – and often dangerous – path through fear that stands as a powerful testament to the human spirit, and an encouragement for all of us to live our most authentic lives, whatever the risks.
A Documentary
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