Justin O’Dell, on the Friday of Father’s Day weekend 2026, accepted his dad’s challenge.
“He had to go out to the eight-mile point, take a picture, and then come back,” Ryan O’Dell explained. “I promised him a root beer if he could do it in under two hours.”
The younger O’Dell, now 13, has grown up on the trails of Mohican State Park and Mohican-Memorial State Forest in Loudonville, Ohio. The 16-mile, out-and-back ride was an easy workout for the young endurance athlete.
“Here I sit,” Justin teased his dad afterward. “Sipping my root beer.”
He rode a 1:49, finishing with 11 minutes to spare.
Justin’s dad, a lifelong adventure athlete himself, had waited for his son at the trailhead — in street clothes.
“I was having an IPA, because we’re riding tomorrow, too,” Ryan admitted. “I gotta space it out a little bit more.”
‘Screw it, I’ll run the marathon’
Ryan is well-known on the trails throughout the Great Lakes and Appalachian regions. His name has become synonymous with “Mohican” in both the trail running and mountain biking communities. He is race director of the Mohican Trail 100 ultramarathon and the Mohican MTB 100, as well as founder and director of the Ohio Mountain Bike Championship series.
Justin is developing similar fame. This year, Justin became the youngest person — ever — to complete a race distance in each of his dad’s signature events during the same season when he rode the 2026 Mohican MTB 100K (62.4 miles) in 9:01:47 and then, two weeks later, ran the 2026 Mohican Trail Marathon (26.2 miles) in 7:35:23.
The young adventure athlete had come up with the plan to double a year earlier when, at age 12, his 9:25:17 finish in the 2025 Mohican MTB 100K left him wanting a little more.
“I told myself after (watching) last year’s run race that I wanted to do the marathon, but I didn’t really take many steps to, you know, start running or training,” Justin said.
So how far, exactly, did the teenager run during training? About six miles. Total.
“I did two 5K runs and then said, ‘Screw it, I’ll run the marathon anyway,'” Justin said. “I suffered the whole way.”
But he did have a solid cycling base, which meant his cardiovascular and respiratory systems were already used to being active for more than a half-dozen consecutive hours. That riding base also helped make the mountain bike race seem a little easier than the trail marathon.
“The run exercised parts of my legs that I didn’t really use much in biking, so that was really interesting” Justin said. “I couldn’t walk for a day. I kind of just lied in bed after that race.”
That admission made the boy’s dad smile.
“I knew that was going to happen,” Ryan told his son. “And I know that you knew that was going to happen.”
Then the race director switched his perspective from that of a father to one more like a coach.
“You did pretty well,” Ryan said. “I think you were ahead of all but 40% of the field. For a first timer — having not prepared — that’s not bad.”
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‘I’m kinda lucky’
Justin grew up thinking everyone spent their weekends on the trails. Some of his earliest memories are of following his dad around at mountain bike races and ultramarathons.
“I loved it. I enjoyed it when I was little,” Justin said. “A lot of these races and areas that we go to are fairly family oriented… as a little kid, there’s plenty of playgrounds and stuff to do.”
By the year of the pandemic, 2020, when Justin was 7, he finally entered his first bike race.
“He was pretty little then,” Ryan said. “He was riding on a little 20-inch.”
It was around that time Justin also decided to experiment with a few other sports.
“I tried wrestling in the first grade,” he said. “And I wasn’t bad at it, but I didn’t really enjoy it.”
In the third grade, the boy signed up for basketball.
“My dad was the coach, and that was fun,” Justin said. “The problem was that basketball practices were on the exact same days as ski practice.”
He realized that even though he enjoyed both sports, he didn’t appreciate where the seasons overlapped.
“It would be a complete nightmare,” Justin said. “You’d be all sweaty from basketball practice and then you’d have to put on snow pants and a big heavy coat.”
The father-son duo had a few important talks that winter.
“He had to kind of make a choice there,” Ryan said. “He chose skiing.”
The boy’s father would have been happy whichever sport his son picked.
“As a dad, it’s pretty cool when your son likes some of the same sports you do,” Ryan said. “We kayak, we ski, we mountain bike and we run. Those are all sports I like. I’m kinda lucky that way.”
‘I enjoy both almost equally’
Skiing has become a highlight of the family’s winters. Every week, at least when there’s snow, they train at Snow Trails ski resort in Mansfield, Ohio.
Justin competes for the Possum Run Ski Team, a junior racing program. For his age group, Justin is listed among the top downhill skiers across the United States in two alpine skiing disciplines: slalom and giant slalom. He hopes to someday, maybe as soon as 2030, ski in the Winter Olympics.
“We’ll see how the road goes,” Justin said. “I can’t predict the future.”
Reality is that, either way, he loves riding mountain bikes as much as he enjoys skiing, and he’s good at each of them.
“I enjoy both almost equally,” Justin said. “I’m gonna keep doing both and keep enjoying both, hopefully.”
The father-coach sees a benefit to his son’s pursuit of both sports. He thinks it already has paid off.
“The course he had to do in the (skiing) national championship, we don’t even have those courses around here,” Ryan said.
The slope in that race was longer than any in the Buckeye State, which meant the course could challenge the young athlete’s muscles.
“One of the things the coaches were concerned about is that he wouldn’t be strong enough to do it,” Ryan said. “I think the biking made that possible because he was not tired going through the national-length runs.”
Running, they both said, is an important third sport.
“They kind of complement each other,” Ryan said. “Running uses different muscles and different strengths, but when you combine it with biking, it’s powerful for both disciplines.”
The mixture keeps the trails exciting, too, especially for teenagers.
“I enjoy doing multiple sports,” Justin said. “Burning out on a sport is where you’ll do a sport too much to the point where you don’t enjoy it, and I want to avoid that.”
MORE: Winners of the 2026 Mohican Trail 100 discuss their race strategy
‘I also had a whole can of Pringles’
Hard to get tired of something, though, when there are so many good memories.
“He doesn’t want you to hear this one,” Ryan said with a laugh. “He did a race in New Mexico, and he carried this big backpack.”
The goal of the pack was to provide water and other essential nutrition during the race. After he finished, Justin gave the backpack to this father.
“I pulled out the pack and I pulled out all kinds of stuff that you wouldn’t typically see in a race, including a yo-yo,” Ryan said. “I said: ‘What are you doing? Why do you have a yo-yo? Why would you carry a yo-yo for a 50-mile race?'”
The young athlete disagreed with his dad’s packing strategy. He said at one point, during a mid-race break, he needed a distraction alongside the trail.
“I may have gotten out the yo-yo and used it a couple times,” Justin said. “So it wasn’t a total waste of weight.”
The dad could only shake his head. Then the son remembered something else.
“I also had a whole can of Pringles,” Justin said.
“Yeah, a whole can of Pringles, not just a little bag,” Ryan said. “He took an entire can of Pringles, a yo-yo, just all kinds of stuff.”
Again, the teenager had an explanation.
“I went through the race with the can of Pringles,” Justin said. “Then I was too tired to walk back to the car and get snacks… and I had those Pringles with me.”
Next race: Camp Tuscazoar Reign of Pain
The Pringles, the yo-yo and a dozen other laughs were helpful for the O’Dells as they spent Father’s Day weekend preparing for Justin’s next race: Camp Tuscazoar Reign of Pain. The event was scheduled to begin 10 a.m. June 27, 2026, in Dover, Ohio.
“We rode Tuscazoar yesterday,” Ryan said the Friday of Father’s Day weekend. “Probably about seven or eight miles or something like that. Justin’s doing that solo next week, so we wanted to check out the course.”
The Camp Tuscazoar Reign of Pain supports the Tuscazoar Trail System expansion. In 2025, participants helped raise nearly $4,000.
“It’s a cool place,” Ryan said. “And it’s historic.”
The course, they said, was in great shape the weekend ahead of the event.
The race will be six hours — whoever rides the furthest in six hours wins.
“I’ve never done a six-hour race,” Justin said. “I’ve never done any race like this, like a six-hour or even a two-hour. I always go by distance, so I’ll just see how it goes.”
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