Still 6 weeks until the festival on the island of the friends of cycling starts. Inspired by my cycling community I became aware of the event “Mallorca 312” and immediately decided: “I have to be there, I want to make that experience”.

First, please watch the video clip made in 2021 and you recognize instantly why this is a cycling festival with all these happy people with a smile on every face.

I am already aware of what I have committed to. 312 km cycling in one day and quite a “few” altitude meters are not an easy undertaking and present me with a new challenge, but as the great philosophers used to say:

If you don’t have goals in life anymore, you’ve reached the end.

And I still have a lot of them!

However, my longest rides so far have been at 210 to 230 km – including 3 – 4000 altitude meters – at the Tour de France in 2017, which was at the second and third week of the tour and in top form of myself. That was 5 years ago and today I am 5 years older.

This brings us to the route. Even for this, there is an impressive flyover video from the organizer and a gpx file for the map view.

With a click on the arrows in the upper right corner the map can be enlarged to the entire screen and can be zoomed in and out to navigate the details.

From the elevation profile, you can see the first 150 km, the first half, will be challenging because of the many climbs, while the second half looks reasonably flat. I will stick it on the handlebars, so I know at least approximately where I am of the route.

Winter Training

When I looked at the course and topography last year, I already got considerable respect for this undertaking and recognized, I would not get the fitness I need by April with my conventional training methods. So I researched and hired a coach who developed a plan that would get me to the level I need.

On Nov 1, 2021 – 26 weeks before the event – I began my winter training schedule of about 12 hours in 5 sessions weekly. Philipp, the trainer, entered the plan in TrainingPeaks.com, a training web site, whose units are then replicated to either my Zwift (indoor) or Garmin (outdoor) accounts, where I can perform each unit on these devices. For the last 20 years of cycling, I’ve always used workouts I’ve read about, but have never followed such a structured plan.

Today, I have to say it worked well and the workouts were never the same, always relative variety and different loads, which made the workouts more interesting. Also, the first rides outdoor confirm a significant increase in my performance. I have never been so strong and fast in March.

What I am missing now are long distances of more than 4 hours in the saddle. A proven strategy is 3 days in a row of long distances followed by 2 resting days. This training brought me in a relatively good shape to cope with the daily 200 km at the tour in 2017.

The event and all around

The trip, transfer, hotel and race registration is organized and confirmed. I arrive in Palma on April 23 and spend the days before with a group of cyclists preparing for the big day as well.

On Sunday, April 30 at 7:00 in the morning around 5000 cyclists start the trip on roads closed for public traffic. Since I have never been part of such an event, I hope for some exchange of experiences on how to cope the distance and what to pay attention to. However, it’s again the usual things:

Planning

How do you plan a “race” like that? Starting too fast, I’ll run out of energy in the end. If I begin too slow, I might not come in within the time limit of 21:00. Also for this Philipp will advise me and suggest the pace. However, it is also crucial to find a group again.

Find a group

I can’t rise 312 km alone, that would be stupid and probably even harder. That’s why it’s essential to find good groups to be with and use their slipstream, which saves up to 60% of energy or grains, as the cyclists say. This will be quite a dynamic process because you will roll along with the strong riders while it’s flat, but leave behind on the next climb and you’ll look for a new group again. I won’t have the comfort of the good times, where the group was waiting for me at the Tour.

Avoid crashes

Finding good groups and avoiding the wrong ones also means minimizing the risk of accidents and crashes. Unfortunately, there are many beginners and ignoramuses among the amateur athletes who do not care about the rules of group riding, ignore them, or do not even know it and it comes to strange situations and crashes. Here, I still have to thank Chris, Ian, and Neil, who taught me at the Tour and gave the opportunity to practice.

Good groups ride very evenly, disciplined and close together, while bad groups ride rather wavy, with abrupt moves of individuals and very unevenly. Staying away from them is a good idea.

Food and Catering

There will be stations set up by the organizer where you can get food and refill the bottles. I will prepare a detailed plan and determine beforehand by when and what I have to eat and drink. Because from my experience I always don’t eat enough and wonder why my performance decreases.

Technology

The roads of Mallorca are said to be challenging for the tires. I read of many defects and the corresponding loss of time by repairing the tires. Although, I tried “Vitoria Pitstop” puncture milk filled into the standard tires, this time I’ll mount Schwalbe EVO tubless with sealing milk, which turned out to be considerable puncture-proof. Especially, since most defects are caused by the smallest damage, which can be fixed by Doc Blue (sealing milk) in no time by itself and you usually do not even notice.

How to cope 312 km in one day

Well, I’ve often been told that long distances are more of a mental challenge than a physical one. Physically, reasonably well-trained cyclists have the ability to cover a lot of kilometers, as long as they stay within their limits. Even professionals know their limits, which they must not exceed, otherwise they risk a drop in performance, which is tantamount to a collapse in the race.

In the next few weeks, I have to find out which mental strategies are suitable for such a marathon. I remember very well the counting of the curves and altitude meters helped me during the Tour when I reached my limits on the Col d’Izoard. And on the 312 km lurk certainly some inner pig dogs, which there will be to defeat.

The remaining weeks

Philipp announced we will now work for 2 weeks to optimize the fitness and the preparation for high-intensity training. The following 3 weeks with a targeted buildup of fitness maximization via very intense intervals and steady endurance in the more intense basic endurance range.

Am curious where this will take me to …