Karen Smyers

Karen Smyers was born September 1, 1961, in Corry, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in an athletic family of eight children. She joined her older siblings on the town swim team at age eight. She swam competitively at Wethersfield High School and was named All-State. After graduation Smyers entered Princeton University and swam on the Princeton team, which won the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Conference Division I Eastern Championships three of the four years she was on the team. She has credited swimming with giving her the aerobic capacity and competitive drive that propelled her to success in the triathlon.

After graduating from Princeton in 1983 with a degree in economics, Smyers was looking for a sport in which she could nurture her drive to compete. Her former roommate was planning to enter a triathlon, so the two trained together. Smyers entered her first triathlon in 1984, although her only bicycle was the one she used to ride to work at a computer consulting firm.