How many matches?

amaferanga

Apparently the definition of a match is >120% FTP for a minute or more.

So what'd be a good number of matches to have?

Just been looking at some of my good and bad race performances for the season and I was surprised at just how many matches I sometimes had.

Bronzie

amaferanga wrote:

So what'd be a good number of matches to have?

1 more than the next best rider in the race

Surely the number of "matches" available will depend on your level of fitness (current Chronic Training Load score?) and your level of freshness (Training Stress Balance)? I'd have thought the amount of L6 training you've done recently will also have an effect on your ability to generate that sort of power repeatedly.

amaferanga

I guess so. I'm just curious as to how many matches would be considered good for a your average 2nd/3rd cat. Say you had a decent CTL of 100, you were racing with a +ve TSB, had been doing at least one L6 session per week on top of racing once or twice a week. So for a 2 hour race would 10 matches be good? Or 20? 30?

GiantMike

Your question is a bit circular because your FTP will determine your racing Cat. So as a 2nd cat, you may have more r fewer matches than me as a 4th Cat, just your matches burn brighter. Matches is about your ability to repeatedly ride above your own FTP, as you get better your FTP rises so it should always be as hard to get above your average.

I think the concept of 'matches' is a bit of a red herring.

If your FTP is 300W then a 'match' would be 360W for a minute, or, more, likely, several peaks and troughs within a minute. Therefore this could be 360W for a minute, or even 500W for 30 secs then 220W for the next 30 secs. i.e. half at 166% FTP then half at 70% FTP. For me, the former would be much less 'tiring' than the latter.

On the other hand, does 600W (i.e. 200% FTP) for 20 secs count as a match? If so, an average crit would see me burning 25 matches in 45 mins, which doesn't sound right.

I think 'matches' were originally used as a generic term but then somebody tried to formalise them when powermeters became more popular.

amaferanga

Peaks coaching group still bang on about matches, which is what had me wondering. I don't think the Wattage of the matches is really important - I'm just wondering how many large sustained efforts (>120% for ~1min or more) I should be capable of. Whether you're a 4th Cat or 2nd Cat is kind of irrelevant as its about how often you can go outside your comfort zone.

Interesting that you should say 25 matches doesn't sound right, because if I take the 120%/1min as the definition I have a few races where I've done >25. Why would 25 not be right?

amaferanga

GiantMike wrote:

On the other hand, does 600W (i.e. 200% FTP) for 20 secs count as a match? If so, an average crit would see me burning 25 matches in 45 mins, which doesn't sound right.

25 x 20s efforts at >600W in a crit and you're still a 4th Cat?

vorsprung

This is an interesting topic for us slow poke audax riders too

If we get to a really big hill and see a group at the top and want to catch them then that uses up a "bullet" or a "match" or whatever

On really long rides there is scope for recovery but I find overdoing on day two is a one way thing, there is no recovery.

Alex_Simmons/RST

You can have a lot of matches and race dumb, or a few and race smart and use them wisely.

I tend to find "repeatability" of supra threshold efforts comes with both increased threshold power and the depth of fitness which comes from developing an ability to manage high chronic training loads, which may take some years.

jibberjim

amaferanga wrote:

Apparently the definition of a match is >120% FTP for a minute or more.

I think that's a pretty poor definition, for some peoples power profiles that is going to be a lot easier than others. Personally I can comfortably do that dozens of times in a race - how long depends on the race, but it's not an effort that I need the motivation for the race for.

Matches I think need to be identified individually as things which you personally find as limiters - whilst I can do 1 minute's at 120% of FTP all race long if I need to, I've only got two at 80+% of my 1 minute power in a race. (Useless given how often the finish of races comes down to 1 minute power.)

GiantMike

amaferanga wrote:

GiantMike wrote:

On the other hand, does 600W (i.e. 200% FTP) for 20 secs count as a match? If so, an average crit would see me burning 25 matches in 45 mins, which doesn't sound right.

25 x 20s efforts at >600W in a crit and you're still a 4th Cat?

Maybe not quite that high....

Race 1: 25 x 15s efforts range from 711W to 503W
Race 2: 25 x 15s efforts range from 657W to 449W

However, further analysis identified only 7 x '120% FTP for 1 minute' matches, mainly because the laps were only 2 mins long. and quite tight and twisty in places.

I've only done 4 races this year so that could explain my solitary point.