Athlete Profile: Karen Trank

by Shannon Brescher

For four years, Karen Trank spent the days before and after the Ironman USA Lake Placid triathlon cooking at her Cliffhanger Café and listening to competitors’ stories. After watching the 2002 race in person, she decided to become more than just a spectator. The following day, she signed up for the 2003 race, and successfully completed its 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2 mile run. This year, she completed her second Ironman on July 23 to benefit Habitat for Humanity.

Karen’s introduction to the Adirondacks occurred 15 years ago, when she and her brother camped out on Giant Mountain. Waking up the next morning, they spotted rock climbers scaling the cliffs of Chapel Pond and decided to take a lesson. Karen fell in love with climbing and began traveling up to the Adirondacks every weekend.

In 1999, she moved to Keene Valley and opened the Cliffhanger Café, a restaurant specializing in healthy and local foods. The café quickly turned into a gathering place, especially for Ironman triathletes. “People would come into the café and I would be all excited for them,” she said.

While encouraging others, Karen realized how much her commitment to the restaurant had limited her own outdoor recreation. “It made me want to be outside and not be cooking food for everybody,” she said. “I decided to do something for myself and for a year I trained.”

Some sections of the Ironman offered greater challenges than others. Although Karen was an experienced swimmer and long-distance cyclist, she despised running. One of Karen’s friends and a former employee, Erica Lohr, remembered her training for the marathon portion. “She came back from a five-mile walk and she was so proud of herself for walking five miles. And I said, ‘Honey, you have a long way to go.’”

Backed by a strong resolve, Karen finished the entire 2003 Lake Placid Ironman. Despite the pouring rain, she enjoyed both her accomplishment and the camaraderie with fellow triathletes. “The first time when I finished, I really felt like I had done something for myself,” she said. “I was able to get out there and do it and it was an individual accomplishment.” Participants like her, who took pride in their simple ability to finish, were the competitors Karen most appreciated. “It’s about the people with the kids who get up at four o’clock in the morning,” she said. “People who could squeeze the training in between work and family … are the people who really inspire me.”

After her first Ironman, Karen returned to the Cliffhanger Café as its owner/operator. However, last fall, she jumped at the opportunity to work in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. Before the storm, Karen had signed up for a FEMA housing inspection class. After Katrina, the agency rescheduled the classes and sent independent contractors to the region. “I went to probably over a thousand houses throughout New Orleans and Mississippi and met with people who had damage to their homes,” Karen said. After assessing the damage, she would determine how much relief money the families would receive.

Working on the Gulf Coast, Karen observed a strength-of-character that encouraged her. “The people I was meeting with, they made a commitment to rebuild, to stay, to be part of New Orleans again. By the time I got there, they had made that decision and were basically moving on to rebuild their lives.”

Karen found the citizens of Jean LaFitte particularly inspiring. During Hurricane Rita, a 30-foot tidal wave destroyed much of the Louisiana town, leaving the buildings underwater for a month. Because most of Rita’s impact affected Texas, the people of the region had to rely on their own resources. “Because they had such a close community, no one left, they fought back,” she said. “The effort that went on there to clean up and help each other was really amazing.”

Observing this community and others like it, Karen realized how grateful she was for her situation. “Little things that happen just don’t affect me that much anymore, because I looked at what happened to these people,” she said. “They just didn’t lose their homes; they lost their jobs, their network, their schools and their community.”

Unfortunately, Karen had to apply these lessons in a practical way shortly after returning to the Adirondacks. Not long after she decided to sell the Cliffhanger Café, a large kitchen fire damaged much of the building. “I looked it and said ‘It wasn’t my home. No one was hurt. It’s just a business.’ I was remarkably calm and I don’t know if I would have been if I hadn’t gone [to the Gulf Coast].”

Besides affecting her perspective, Karen’s trip inspired her to continue contributing to the area’s reconstruction. For her second Ironman race, she collaborated with two other athletes to raise money for the Ausable Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity. The chapter agreed to use half of the money for local projects, such as the construction of their eighth house. They intend to contribute the other half to Habitat for Humanity International’s hurricane relief efforts. So far, Habitat International has completed nearly 400 new homes off-site, and then rebuilt them in the affected regions.

Beyond fundraising, Karen’s commitment to helping others inspired her to complete the entire race, even when she questioned her ability to finish. The Friday before this year’s race, already dealing with a foot injury and lack of training time, Karen suffered a severe spider bite. Her foot swelled to the point where her running shoes no longer fit. Determined to attempt the race, she took medicine to treat the bite, despite the possibility of stomach irritation. Fortunately, by the time she finished the swim and bike sections, the swelling in her foot had all but subsided.

However, the medicine severely bloated her stomach, so much so that running became impossible. She knew she could quit the race without regrets, but continued on because of the support from her friends. Teresa Palen, one of Karen’s training partners, pushed her to keep going, even though she had to walk the entire marathon. “If she wasn’t going to be really hurt for it, just sore and tired, you might as well push yourself through it,” Teresa said. “She doesn’t give up easily.”

Along with the onlookers’ encouragement, Karen said that the benefit aspect motivated her to finish. “This time when I finished, I felt like I did something for other people,” she said. “Because I was raising money for Habitat for Humanity and because of the people in New Orleans, I showed up in the first place and kept going when I probably should have stopped.”

If you would like to contribute to the Ausable Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity, you can find more information at their Web site: www.kvvi.net/~giving/Habitat.htm.

Shannon Brescher is currently working as a Scotia-Glenville Traveling Museum educator and freelance writer. In the fall, she will be attending the University of Oxford for her master’s degree. She enjoys biking, hiking, rock-climbing and running.