I knew that training for Mallorca 312 would be a challenge. When I naively agreed to the
opportunity without a second thought, I had little more than 15 weeks to prepare and virtually no cycling in the five months prior.
Now, nine weeks later, I feel I stand a better chance of finishing the granfondo than on day one, but its total length (312 km), its vertical ascent (4,600 metres), and the cut-off time still cast a long shadow in the distance. They’re spectres, always howling their sinister litany, trying to creep doubts into my already trembling mind and legs.
Read Nick's first article in the series: The countdown to Mallorca 312 begins – here's how I am preparing for the event
First challenges
Over the past few weeks, the initial challenges have taken various forms. Firstly, my daughter sneaked into the room during a power profile test and laughed her head off. In hindsight, that looked more like a mockery of my attempt to train like an elite while I try to fend off a midlife crisis. Then there was the struggle to fit training around a busy work and family life, which led me to carve out a daily turbo session from 5 to 6 am before heading to the office – by bike, of course.
And then there was the family holiday to Miami to visit the in-laws, where I usually seize the opportunity to escape family dynamics and go for long runs along the beach. As cycling in Miami is still a no-go for me and panic training had been building up, I decided to join a local gym and sign up for spin classes. Despite feeling quite ridiculous at first, and out of place among young and old women spinning like Chris Froome in his heyday, I must admit that the classes left me with stronger legs than when I first started.
At the same time, despite the above-par experience with spinning and a background in coaching, that guided for the first part of the preparation, I realised that to boost my chances in Mallorca 312, I needed support from a pure cyclist.
Nick is documenting his training for Mallorca 312 (Image: Fritjof Hilgenfeldt)
In search for help
That’s why I decided to send a coaching request to Team EF Coaching – a training group run by some of the most successful former professionals in the sport, including Colby Pearce, Alex Howes, Nathan Haas, Ian Boswell, and Coryn Rivera – who, collectively, have participated in 42 Grand Tours, secured six stage wins, and earned over a hundred national titles. Additionally, Team EF Coaching is connected to and benefits from the WorldTour team's experience and expertise. If anyone could help me, it was them.
Two days after my email, I received a reply from Nathan Haas, co-director of the Team EF
Coaching, who has himself ridden in seven Grand Tours, won stages in the Tour of Oman, Tour of Britain, and the Sun Tour, among others, and was likely as enthusiastic as I was about my mad plan. When I read his response, I knew I had found the perfect person to help me with the project.
Nathan Haas is the co-director of the Team EF Coaching (Image: Team EF Coaching)
Team EF Coaching Philosophy
“The connection to the world is one of the critical parts of our DNA,” he later explained me during one of our calls. “We're constantly educating our coaches, and we get experts from the WorldTour team to help run the education sessions. We have the team nutritionists, doctors, osteopaths and other trainers to share their knowledge and
experience.”
But it’s not only the connection to the highest level in the sport or their access to leading
science and training protocols that convinced me EF Coaching Academy was the best fit for me; those were the initial advantages. What intrigued me more, and coincided with a particular stage in my life, was the focus on transformation within goal setting, the process of developing self-confidence and intrinsic intentionality, and moving away from a more static coach-athlete relationship where one sends a programme and the other simply executes without question.
“We're absolutely focused on helping everybody's goals, dreams and aspirations,” says Haas. “But we don't care if someone nails a training session or wins their race. It does make us happy, and we love seeing it, but we don't like to keep riders in an archetype like a father and a child. We like to use cycling as a metaphor for people’s growth into themselves. We try to teach the confidence to come from within, and we try to teach all of our athletes the importance of goal-setting, but within goal-setting, it's actually about having intention. Every decision we make has intent behind it, and that can be as important as not just giving our athletes a session; we explain our athletes why we're doing this type of session.”
Team EF Coaching met up with the EF Education-Oatly squad during a recon of Strade Bianche (Image: Team EF Coaching)
Health First
I grasped this part of their philosophy early on. Before beginning training with their guidance, I relied on my own experience and used an AI platform for extra assistance. My first week training alone was probably more intense than Haas’s approach, and the AI platform pushed me even further—something I knew was somewhat aggressive. Nonetheless, I decided to follow the algorithm’s suggestions (including the power profile that elicited my daughter's derision). Ultimately, though, I abandoned that approach when I began working with EF.
Haas’s emphasis immediately shifted my focus toward good health: supporting training with proper rest and knowing when to back off – namely, when I caught a cold. The goal was to ease off slightly to stay upright in the long run.
“I have been very impressed by your level of professionalism when it comes to energy management, in terms of not overtraining in each session. Additionally, when you were sick, we could work together on deciding when you were ready to train again, so we
minimised the interruption,” he told me. “That said, March was your highest workload in six months of training, and we have seen an impressive level of durability. My observation is that the structure we have created so far has helped you handle this progressive load and intensity well.”
And I felt it on the road, too. Two key sessions where I felt particularly strong were hilly rides of only about 50 km each, lasting three hours and thirty minutes but featuring around 2,000 metres of elevation—more than Mallorca’s first 50 km. Then came the first rides over 100 km, followed by an all-out test in which I performed better toward the end than at the start. Despite the first positive moments, the journey is still long and hides many more hurdles.
The Road Ahead
As for the plan going forward, Haas sees a dual focus targeting two very different – but closely intertwined – energy systems.
“Our approach is to combine both intensive training, which is to up-regulate our ability to
create high-intensity efforts and improve our oxygen consumption capacity (VO₂), while also training extensively, which allows us to handle duration—essentially extending our time at an endurance pace,” he explains. “Improving both sides of the energy spectrum is essential because the benefits of each support the other and make us more durable and stronger for this epic event.”
The short lead time is not ideal, making consistency without overtraining our main challenge – and guiding principle.
“The only way to build in cycling is through consistency, and through monitored observation of an athlete’s adaptations and motivation,” he says. “Motivation is depleted when an athlete is overtrained, and an overtrained athlete loses momentum. When we lose momentum, we lose consistency. So, I look for the small emotional and energetic cues from my athletes to decide how we progress in our training plan. In most cases, less is more, no matter what the distance or level of your goal is. Consistency is the game.”
The next five weeks will still be packed with work and family deadlines, but with winter
beginning to loosen its grip and giving way to brighter early-spring days, I’m confident I
have a new ally to rely on – unless I’ve just jinxed it.
