In sport we often hear athletes talking about their highs and lows; the big wins and other top results on the bike or the days when things went wrong. But we hear very little about the personnel coaching and advising our top cyclists.
So let's put that right in relation to Daire Feeley (Burren CC), a former UCI Continental rider. Feeley has been the top-ranked C1/A1 road cyclist on the home scene for the past six years. He has won more races in Ireland than any other rider during that time, including Rás Tailteann three years ago.
Though Feeley now runs his own coaching business - Daire Feeley Performance Coaching - and is a seasoned rider, aged 28 years, he is not self-coached. Instead, he told stickybottle he has key coaching and performance experts working with him and he also outlines in this piece exactly how he benefits from their involvement in his career.
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Those two experts are former British international, Dr Alex Welburn, and Chris Lowe. Welburn is Feeley's coach of the past five years and he first starting working with Lowe, as his nutritionist, six years ago.
Welburn represented Great Britain in cyclocross and MTB, including riding the 2012 UCI World Cyclocross Championships. Since hanging up his elite racing wheels, he has emersed himself in high performance coaching, including PhD work on Critical Power (CP) and Work Prime (W').
Just to explain - for those who may not known:
- Critical power is essentially the level of power you can, in theory, hold for an indefinite period; between aerobic and anaerobic or before a sustainable effort becomes unsustainable.
- Work Prime is the amount of work (in kJ) you can expend above your CP before you blow from exhaustion.
Welburn describes him as a cycling coach and sport scientist with a BSc and MSc, who is also a PhD physiology student of 'W’ and CP'. He also established the Performance Project, through which he coaches athletes and provides consultation.
Chris Lowe has a BSc in Sports Biomedicine & Nutrition, and an MSc in Sport & Exercise Nutrition. He runs Chris Lowe Nutrition and has worked with athletes across range of pro sports, including rugby, cycling, boxing and motorsport.
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Uncomplicated, backed by science and "real world"
"What I really get from working with people like Alex Welburn and Chris Lowe isn’t just a training plan or a structured coaching setup," Feeley said. "It’s having people I can trust to ask questions and get proper, informed answers from.
"They’re not just speaking from experience either. Everything they do is backed up by current science and what’s actually working in the real world. Both of them work with high level athletes, but the best thing is how simple they keep it. Nothing overcomplicated, just clear, practical advice that actually makes a difference.
"I’ll often chat with them about training, nutrition, or something new I’ve read about in performance science. Sometimes I’ll send them papers or ideas I’ve come across, and they’ll give me their take on how it might apply in practice.
“That’s been a huge help, not only for my own development as an athlete but also in how I think about applying those ideas when I’m working with other people.
"And one thing I’ve found is that if you want good advice, proper informed advice, you’ve got to be willing to pay for it. But that cost is worth its weight in gold - ten times over.
"The value you get back from working with people who actually know what they’re talking about, who can explain the 'why' behind what they do, far outweighs any amount you spend.
“I used to look at this stuff solely based off the price. But I found a lot of that was just the same regurgitated nonsense with no individuality to it."
