Gareth O'Neill (Athlete Nutrition Coach HD) has been one of the best elite riders in the country for the last six years. And even though he is an experienced campaigner, his record in 2024 is a very good advertisement for shaking things up.
This time last year the 28-year-old completely restructured his winter training - including halving his training hours for long periods - even though it felt counter intuitive.
He also reversed his usual approach to high intensity efforts, on the one hand, and high volume miles on the road on the other. Not only were the types of efforts and winter rides completely different, so too was the order in which he did them through the winter.
Crucially, he also held himself back at other periods during winter 2023-24. Those changes, which he outlines to stickybottle below, delivered him eight wins this year; from March to September. Though he said he was "constantly asking" himself "am I doing enough" - especially between October and Christmas last year - it worked wonders.
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The success came immediately, with victory on the first weekend of the season, at the Seamus Kennedy Memorial. That was followed by wins in the Killinchy CC GP, Tour of the Mournes, National Road Series Meath GP, Noel Teggart Memorial, Moynalty GP, Mountnugent GP and Ulster Hill Climb Championships.
O'Neill also took bronze in both the Ulster Road Race Championships and National Hill Climb Championships; among 16 podium finishes through the season. He finished 3rd in the Cycling Ireland A1 rankings.
Working as a nutritionist, specialising in high performance, O'Neill has been racing under his own branding with the help of other sponsors. And he says he also really focused on his nutrition over the last 18 months, both for performance and recover, which gave him an extra edge.
Changing winter
"I changed my approach to winter training, it was completely different to what I'd done in previous years," he said of himself and long-term coach Barry Monaghan, a former international rider, coming up with a new plan 12 months ago.
"The traditional winter would have been 'right get the miles in, it's all about just getting the hours in'. And at the start of October you start building up. And that's really what I did before; consistently 20 to 25 hours a week and just doing big miles.
"And then I was making this mistake of deliberately not following the plan I was meant to. If you had a three-hour ride to do, I'd be doing four hours, doing five hours. I was always pushing it a bit too much without realising it.
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"It meant I went into the season with a bit of mental fatigue. And I didn't realise that until we changed the approach last winter. So instead of doing the traditional base miles from October onwards, we decided to do the high intensity at the start; from October until the week of Christmas.
"I was only averaging 10 to 12 hours a week. But it was two to three sessions of high intensity work, which traditional recovery sessions. A good bit of it was done on the turbo; an hour and a half max - high intensity threshold VO2 work.
"And doing that from October until the week of Christmas was completely different. I was constantly back and forward to Barry asking 'am I doing enough?' You're thinking you might be behind because you're doing 10 to 12 hours a week rather than up to 25.
"So you think you're not actually training. But with that high intensity work, it meant that when I did hit Christmas, when you do the volume, your winter is really only starting then. And from Christmas to March is not a long time. You're building those long base miles.
"But there was a mental 'switch on'. You're saying to yourself 'winter training has only actually started now, and you've only two or three months of it until you're back into the racing season'. And that meant, yes, the body was fresher. But the big change was I had a clear mind, a clear vision once the season started. You're going into the races that bit fresher."
Fresher for new season
Having started the season mentally fresher, because he hadn't been doing big miles for months and months, O'Neill said when he started racing, he also changed the way he approached each event.
Usually, he would treat some races as stepping stones towards bigger events. But he put that attitude to one side and treated each race as equal. They were all a chance for another win, rather than complicating things.
"Last year I didn't get a win until June," he says. "But I was probably putting too much pressure on myself. And then there's periods when you're asking yourself is it worth it.
"It's about telling yourself that nobody's putting pressure on you except yourself. That's where the wins fell into place and then it carried on from the back of the 2023 season into this year.
"It's all well and good riding your bike and we all love it. But when you're talking about the high performance end, you have to settle yourself and look at the bigger picture."
