Re analogies I prefer bank account. You have an amount of money in the account. The rate at which you spend it determines how long it lasts. You can make additional depoisits but they take time to clear. The trick is to balance spending of carb reserves with depoisits such that you are empty/slightly overdrawn at the end.

I thought the matches thing was a different effect on your muscles, that there was a limit to how many intervals you could do above your threshold regardless of your carb intake. I.e. necking a couple of gells doesn’t necessarily buy you another match but will get you through another few miles at/below threshold power.

If you continued the bank account review, you’d start with £1000(calories) credit, and burn them / replace them through the day. But at certain times you could take out a short term loan (oxygen debt rather than calorie debt) rather than draw on the current account, but at a point you piss off the bank manager and he cut’s off your credit.

Bank account analogy, too complicated for me! 🙂 Probably works best on longer events where re-fueling is important.

Matches one is a bit simpler. PM is handy here as you can start to put numbers on how bright and how long your matches can burn.

With the bank account you also need some sort of curve – the faster you spend the less you actually have – at some point it doesn’t matter how much you are putting in as you are spending faster than the body can replenish, so irrespective of having a ‘balance’ you are going to burn out.

I like the matches one. I can’t say I’ve got to the point of measuring the burning of them yet, just the number of matches, I go by the maximum if you are going to burn one, burn it properly. The rest of the race is down to pacing and knowing what output (HR or power) you can maintain for that period of time – which is closer to the bank account idea.

at some point it doesn’t matter how much you are putting in as you are spending faster than the body can replenish

Sounds like my bike related spending 😕