Although most elite athletes train upwards of 45 hours per week, Shawn’s parents insist that she have a “normal life”, limiting Shawn’s training to 25 hours a week.
“I usually work out 4 hours a day and 5 to 6 hours on Saturday with Sundays off. A typical practice consists of practicing every event for about an hour. A lot of people assume I have private coaching, but I work out with 13 other girls at the gym.”
This leaves her time for some of her favorite things such as horseback riding, hanging out with friends, walking shelter dogs and of course, scrapbooking!
Shawn started saving everything she could from gymnastic competitions years ago, such as ticket stubs, photos, notes from fans and official letters. Finally, her Mom decided to make a project out of chronicling Shawn’s life as a gymnast, and the two of them began their scrapbooking journey.
She learned about ‘layouts’ from sitting on her school’s yearbook committee, which has certainly helped in creating colorful and interesting scrapbooks. There’s no form or discipline to her scrapbook technique, it’s a different application every time. And her next scrapbook will be her biggest and best yet with her Olympic experience forever memorialized in her Beijing 2008 book.
For more photos of Shawn’s scrapbooks, visit
http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=619/photos/galleryid=106356.html
