Cat's story: Cheaha Challenge

BaseCamp athlete Cat Paquin shared her experience at the 2025 Cheaha Challenge in Alabama.

It was a BaseCamp weekend at Cheaha Challenge where I jumped in with Shannon Scanlon, Namrita Brooke, and Nathan Goates in their racing group, and man did I get my @ss handed to me and got dropped in the very first quarter mile! Yes, 0.25 mile!!! 🤣

Cheaha this year was ~96.5 miles with ~9k feet elevation. I was solo for quite a while, questioning myself briefly, but staying steady and finding my own rhythm. I was able to climb my way back into the group that dropped me from the very start, but it took about 50 miles. I guess that's what you call durability, right Tim?

I finished strong with 1st place in my age group (partially due to DNFs or DNSs, but hey!) and 4th place overall under 45. It was a wonderful and challenging eye-opening experience, and I clearly have a lot to work on if I want to be competitive from the start, but I'm ready for the work.

I'm very happy considering this past year was my very first structured training ever and I am already looking forward to continual improvements with BaseCamp.

Oh yeah, I got to meet those little Zwift avatars in real life, and it was awesome! Massive thank you, Shannon & Den Scanlon. You two are so sweet and supportive. Thanks to Namrita for honing in my overall goals into process goals, it worked. Thanks to Nathan for the course recon tips and encouragement. It was great to see the interaction between coach and rider! Thank you to Lori, my strength coach! I followed your advice and it worked. I did my 1st RTT strength WO yesterday, and I'm already fatigued again, haha. Not to mention, congrats to Wrenn for your podium spot in the TT!

ALL 4 BaseCamp women made the podium this past weekend. Incredible showing, ladies! We've got a special thing going here. Thank you all for being a part of making this happen.