Forest Gump with a Left Hook: Pierce O’Leary’s Up and Running

Pierce O’Leary didn’t spend his summer sulking when his August homecoming collapsed. He didn’t bury himself in frustration or sit there replaying the disappointment.

He ran. And ran. And ran.

By the time he finished, the Dubliner had accidentally completed a full ultramarathon training programme — knocking out 58 kilometres from Dublin to Glendalough, running mountain trails, hammering descents, climbing through Wicklow forests and even sprinting straight through a film set.

“I literally ended up doing a full prep of an ultramarathon,” O’Leary laughed when speaking to Boxing Ticknets NI. “My strength coach was training for one and I love running. So I just followed the schedule. We’d do hundreds and thousands of miles together. Then one day I ran 58k — Dublin to Glendalough. Mad.”

What began as a distraction from the collapsed homecoming ended up transforming him physically and mentally. Camp for his fight this weekend in Nottingham, he says, has never felt so easy.

“This has probably been one of the best camps of my life,” he said. “No stress. Everything went smooth. The fitness level was already there — I wasn’t rebuilding anything. It was literally compound interest. All the work from the summer just stacked on top of itself.”

The stories from the Wicklow mountains sound like something between a Rocky montage and a comedy sketch. There was the day he and his coach accidentally ran straight through a Civil War film being shot on location.

“We just kept going,” he said. “Two lads at the gates, they couldn’t catch us — we were gone. We ran through the set, up the mountain, back down through it again. You’ll probably see us as extras when the film comes out!”

Then there was the moment they realised they massively underestimated the distance… and the fuel needed.

“We didn’t think we were running 26k, so we only brought stuff for an hour or two,” he said. “We ended up in the car park where all the film catering was. I went full Dub — bit of water, said thanks, then filled the bag with sandwiches, apples, bananas when they turned their back. That got us another 10k!”

Behind the laughs, though, is the real benefit: the grit needed for a fighter trying to climb levels.

“When you’re running the long miles, mentally it’s so tough