Jack Driscoll has undergone a huge transformation as an athlete.
After spending much of his early fitness journey focused on bodybuilding and powerlifting, he gradually moved towards endurance sport, completing a sub-three-hour marathon, an Ironman and ultramarathons before discovering HYROX.
In the 25/26 HYROX season, that journey took another major step forward. Driscoll won five HYROX races and finished second overall at the 2026 HYROX Age Group World Championships.
He has now left his career as a firefighter to pursue HYROX full-time.
In our conversation on the Rox Lyfe podcast, Driscoll explained the changes behind his breakthrough season, how he structures his training and why becoming better at HYROX ultimately required him to give up some of the training he enjoyed.
Getting Better at HYROX Meant Doing Less of Everything Else
Driscoll spent years trying to become a well-rounded athlete.
He competed in bodybuilding and powerlifting, could squat around 500lb and deadlift 600lb, while also developing enough endurance to run a sub-three-hour marathon.
That versatility initially seemed well suited to HYROX. But when Driscoll decided he wanted to see how good he could actually become at the sport, he realised something had to change.
“If you want to specialise in any sport, you have to take the fat away. Anything that’s not making you better at the sport, you need to get rid of.”
For Driscoll, that meant significantly reducing the heavy lifting and CrossFit-style workouts he had previously enjoyed.
He still strength trains around three times per week, but those sessions now have a much clearer purpose: making him a better HYROX athlete.
He believes this becomes increasingly important as the standard of the sport rises. Being exceptionally strong while also doing lots of unrelated fitness work may sound impressive, but every session creates fatigue and uses recovery capacity.
His approach became what he describes as “addition by subtraction”.
Rather than asking what else he could add to his training, he started asking what he could remove.
His Running Has Improved Dramatically
Running was once one of Driscoll’s biggest weaknesses.
He says he grew up hating it and joked that he “ran like a refrigerator”. Even after he started taking endurance sport more seriously, his background remained very different from many of the athletes he now races against.
That has changed quickly.
Around a year and a half ago, Driscoll says he could barely break 18 minutes for 5km. Shortly before our conversation, he ran 16:15.
His weekly running volume has also climbed considerably, with Driscoll targeting around 70 miles (113km) per week during the summer.
But pure running speed is only part of what makes someone effective in HYROX.
Driscoll believes one of his strengths is his ability to maintain his running performance after stations.
Years of combining running with extremely heavy strength training may have inadvertently helped.
“I was pretty cooked in my body,” he says of his early running years. “I just thought that’s how running felt.”
His theory is that his strength background may also allow him to tolerate the sleds, lunges and wall balls without his running economy deteriorating as much afterwards.
The aim now is simple: continue improving his pure running speed while retaining that ability to run well when compromised.
Most of His Training Isn’t as Hard as You Might Expect
Driscoll was training around 20 hours per week while still working as a firefighter.
His harder sessions generally fall on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, with much of the remaining time devoted to easy aerobic work.
That can mean three or four hours of Zone 2 training on an easy day.
He runs, cycles and uses the SkiErg and RowErg to accumulate aerobic volume. One of his favourite ways to make longer sessions more manageable is rotating between machines:
- 10 minutes bike
- 5 minutes SkiErg
- 5 minutes RowErg
- Repeat
His hard days are also carefully structured.
Tuesday typically includes a running threshold session followed later by compromised running with movements such as sleds, lunges or wall balls.
Thursday includes faster running, with a greater VO2 max focus, followed by another session involving machines and HYROX stations.
Saturday is the day when more elements come together in longer HYROX-specific sessions.
Importantly, even these sessions aren’t necessarily all-out.
“If you go too far one day into your training and you cook the rest of the week, it really served no purpose.”
Driscoll sees the same principle applying to racing. Going too hard on one run or station can cost far more time later than you gained from the initial effort.
For him, energy management is one of the most important skills in HYROX.
Going All In to Find Out How Good He Can Be
Driscoll’s decision to leave firefighting is particularly significant because he enjoyed the job.
He wasn’t escaping a career he disliked. He was leaving something good because he wanted the opportunity to fully pursue something he loved.
His motivation isn’t dependent on eventually becoming the best HYROX athlete in the world.
He wants to discover his own ceiling.
“You only have one life to live. Do the things you love with the full intention of giving them your all.”
Driscoll admits that his ultimate level may prove to be that of a fringe Elite 15 athlete.
He can accept that.
What he doesn’t want is to look back and wonder what might have happened if he had fully committed himself to finding out.
After the progress he has made in the past year, he now has the opportunity to do exactly that.
Listen to the full episode now Spotify, or watch below…
