PERRYSVILLE — Shannon Kurek has staged more multisport events than he can remember — thousands across the country in the 25 years he’s been in the race directing business — but none of them was quite like Sunday’s Mohican Endurance Festival.
The inaugural event, which featured duathlon (run/bike/run) and triathlon (swim/bike/run) competitions, snaked its way through southern Ashland and Richland counties Sunday morning and was a homecoming of sorts for Kurek, a 1987 Madison graduate.
“It’s gorgeous here,” Kurek said as racers trickled across the finishing line at the Mohican State Park Lodge and Conference Center. “We have people here this weekend who have never been here before and they have come up to me and said, ‘I can’t believe this.’
“The scenic element of the course allows us to maybe make it a little harder.”
The scenery and the degree of difficulty during Sunday’s running segments were off the charts. The course took the half triathlon and half duathlon competitors from the covered bridge to the gorge overlook in Mohican State Park, a climb of slightly more than 300 vertical feet in 1.6 miles.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ve run 28 marathons and almost as many half (marathons), two Ironman (triathlons) and I’ve never run a half-marathon that was quite like that,” half duathlon winner Scott Davis of Mansfield said. “I don’t know if I’ve suffered like that before.”
A St. Peter’s graduate, Davis completed the half duathlon course in five hours and 14 minutes. The half duathlon opened with a 3.1-mile run before competitors mounted their bicycles for a 56-mile ride. After completing the two-loop bike circuit, racers finished with a 13.1-mile out-and-back run with a turnaround point at Mohican’s scenic gorge overlook platform. Half triathlon competitors opened with a 1.2-mile swim around Pleasant Hill Lake before joining the duathletes for the 56-mile ride and 13.1-mile run.
“Shannon and his team are a class act,” the 46-year-old Davis said. “I’ve done some of their events before and I don’t know if they’ve had anything quite like this. The bike was OK. It was a challenging bike course, but nothing at all compared to that run. It was fantastic.”
That is music to the ears of Kurek, who was an accomplished lightweight wrestler at Madison before discovering triathlon. He participated in his first duathlon in Mansfield in the spring of 1987 and, with the help of his aunt, founded Health and Fitness Promotions in 1988.
“I was looking for a way to stay fit without having to cut weight,” the 45-year-old Kurek said. “When I was starting out in the sport myself, I would ride out to Mohican to train. I love this area, so it’s really fun to com back after 25 years of doing this.”
HFP Racing staged its first event, the Mid-Ohio Bicycle Series, in April of 1989. Later that year, Kurek organized the Mid-Ohio Heart Clinic Challenge, a triathlon at Pleasant Hill Lake Park.
“We created a race at Pleasant Hill 25 years ago,” Kurek said. “My family and I put it on and we had about 350 competitors.
“It’s cool to come back here. We’ve been on site here for three days and some of the people who helped with that first race are here and still helping.”
Sunday’s event drew 400 competitors from seven states, including California and New Jersey. The 45-year-old Kurek, who is an accomplished triathlete, sat out Sunday’s event with an injured calf muscle.
“Racers like to do Shannon’s races because he is a racer,” said Rich Fowler, the voice of HFP Racing. “It’s a very racer-friendly atmosphere. He makes sure the racers are happy, but he wouldn’t tell you that because it’s not his style.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
