Mullingar Harriers’ Jack O’Leary is gearing up for another cross country season, coming off a summer where he set personal bests in both the 5K and 10K on the track—finally surpassing his previous 25-lap best from four years ago.

The national 5,000m bronze medallist is a member of the Athletics Ireland National Endurance Group and recently spent four weeks at a high-altitude training camp in Font Romeu, France, preparing alongside some of Ireland’s top distance runners.

O’Leary has been logging 102-mile training weeks in the lead-up to the road and cross-country season. One of his go-to recovery tools? A five-euro rolling pin from Woodie’s.

“You can spend 50 quid on a stick foam roller that they’ll sell you the world on, but you can also go into Woodies and buy one of these for five euro and just travel the world with me,” O’Leary explained on Athletics Ireland’s Day in the Life video on Youtube.

Of course, using kitchen tools for recovery isn’t without its quirks.

“I think I’ve had this for about three years now, but it’s very funny if I leave it on the ground at home… Then my mum would come along and pick it up and put it back in the drawer. It has not been washed in a few years,” laughed O’Leary.

Running over 100 miles a week also comes with its share of physical challenges. O’Leary admits that certain areas of the body tend to feel the strain more than others.

“I find my quads are usually the first victim. They get tight in my training, and then I get a lot of calf issues.

“And the biggest thing is always going to be sleep, hydration, fuel… I like to think I’m fairly on top of all my nutrition and hydration.”

Now 27, the Kildare native is still considered young in distance running terms, but he acknowledges that things have changed as he’s moved through his mid-20s.

“I never feel old with the lads, but I am very jealous when the boys can just jump out of the car and get jogging. I’ve lost that ability over the last while.

“Just coming from an injury background, I’ve learnt these young lads can get away with it, but I can’t… The only time I really feel old is here.”

Training at altitude is just one of the many strategies athletes use to gain a competitive edge. Modern endurance training has become increasingly data-driven, relying heavily on science and technology.

With greater access to information, tools like lactate monitors and structured training plans have become standard practice.

One of the latest trends in endurance running is the “double threshold” session, where two threshold workouts of varying intensity are completed in a single day.

O’Leary finds this approach manageable, though he notes the effects are more noticeable the following morning, especially when training at 1,300m altitude.

“The effort is the same as home, but I just find the biggest difference is it’s tomorrow. It’s the recovery day, and you really feel the weight of 20 miles at altitude.

“If you go too quick on either of these sessions, it can get out of hand pretty quickly. I think a lot of us are not pace pushing, it’s just about hitting the zone, checking the box and then, job done.”

After a breakthrough summer O’Leary has adjusted his goals, with remaining injury-free his top target. He plans to compete on both the road and grass this winter before shifting focus to the longer track events next summer.

“I’m very focused on just a massive winter build, carry that over into the summer because this summer I still, I had a decent block in the winter, but I had a calf issue in January. I was only running maybe 90 miles a week, whereas already I’m running, you know, 105-ish miles a week.

“So If I can try and consistently keep that for the next few months, I think that’ll really stand to me.”

The National Endurance Group is a performance-based programme that supports Ireland’s top athletes, funding up to three four-week training camps per year.

The training base in the Pyrenees has long been a favourite among athletes, offering both high-altitude benefits and the charm of local bakeries.

While O’Leary doesn’t immediately feel the effects of altitude training, he says the benefits become apparent a couple of weeks after returning home, perfectly timed for his upcoming races.

“It’s funny, you don’t actually feel that much better, genuinely… The first kind of two or three days… but the middle part is the slump, and then after two weeks, which hopefully I’ll be racing Valencia, that’s 14 days and that is when you really start to feel good, you know?”

You can watch the full episode of a Day in The Life with Jack O’Leary on the Athletics Ireland Youtube channel from 3pm on Saturday 1, November: HERE 

Follow Jack on Instagram: HERE 

Read more about the National Endurance Group: HERE