Mallorca 312
~ Eoin Pearson ~
This year Conor McGillion and I returned for the third time. I had previously managed the 167km event last year and the 226km with a gang from the club in 2023. Last year Conor put in what will go down in my book as the gutsiest ride ever by a club member when he completed the 312 on the limit while being sick as a dog on anti-biotics with a nasty illness for the previous three weeks. (See my video of him on a club WhatsApp thread last year). I guess this year he wanted to enjoy it, and he did as he blitzed the route too.
So, Conor and I lined up in the purple box (reserved for those who had entered on two previous occasions). This year there were 8500 riders, but the start went smoothly enough (despite lashing rain on us for 15 minutes before we set off) with us crossing the start line at 06:40. That was the last I saw of Conor as he galloped off up the road chasing guest pro cyclist Alejandro Valverde up Femenia!!!!
The 312km event has 4500 metres of climbing and about 4200m of this is in the first 150km in the Serra de Tramuntana range. My strategy for the day was to go as hard as I could to make the first cut off at 11:15 (97km) and then focus on the next cutoff at 220km at 16:30. At the 101km food stop my wife Karen texted to tell me Conor was behind me and caught up waiting for ambulances to take away a rider who crashed at 90km on a downhill section. I had passed the scene about 20 minutes previously but at that stage they hadn’t paused the event. So, onto the next tough 53km climbing section. You really are alone in your own head for the first 150km as it is just climb after climb and you just must set your own pace and ignore everyone else as you don’t know if they are doing the shorter events. I made the first cutoff at 10:24 so knew I was going well.
At the food stops (of which there were many and very well organised) I didn’t hang around for any more than 4-5 minutes - just enough time to fill bottles and get going as every two and a half minutes stopped was 1 kilometre up the road. From experience I knew that after getting over most of the climbing by the 150km mark I was looking to sit in on whatever groups formed and was lucky to latch onto a group of big Belgian, Dutch and German Rouleurs who powered along at 35-40 kmh. I got to the 220km mark at 15:12 with 1 hour 18 mins to spare and as I feared a lot of that group peeled off to head the 6km back to complete the 226 leaving just 5 of us in that group to carry on. Now with nowhere to hide the 5 of us worked very well to the food stop at Ariany at 242km where again I just did a grab and go and picked up a new group very quickly (or at least they picked up me!).
Arta at 286Km was a party town with hundreds of spectators cheering riders into the town square. Again, I did not hang about to allow lactic acid to build up and just got going for the last 28km. Riders were very thin on the ground now and only 4 of us for the last bit up the main road. I knew this section very well and was delighted to see C’an Picafort 5km from home and still feeling very good. Finished at 18:30 with 2 hours 20 to spare having ridden the 312km in 11 hours 13 mins (27.6KMh). Karen had (rightfully) warned me we weren’t coming back next year if I didn’t get it done this time as there are plenty of other events to do - no pressure then. Andrew Archer put me under real pressure too insisting my form was good enough to get it done. You always doubt if you’ve put in the right training when it comes to these extreme events but luckily, I seemed to have. If anyone planning on doing any of the M312 events, then contact me at stcctouring@gmail.com for a bit more in depth feedback.
