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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. All right.

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Speaker 1: Kind of a fun quick fit tip, but there's something

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Speaker 1: to learn here as well. Talked about and written about

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Speaker 1: how my dad has been running since he was in

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Speaker 1: his thirties, started doing marathons and as I wrote in

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Speaker 1: my book The Marathon Method, the more kids he had,

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Speaker 1: the more he ran. Ended up having six boys, ran

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Speaker 1: a lot of marathons, still running today in his seventies,

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Speaker 1: you know, because six boys will do that to you.

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Speaker 1: And I used to join him on my bike to

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Speaker 1: start when I was I think ten years old, maybe

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Speaker 1: even younger, and did my first ten k with him

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Speaker 1: when I was ten with a friend, and yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: still running today. We have a running joke pun intended

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Speaker 1: in my family with the brothers where when my dad

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Speaker 1: or brother will talk about a run they had just

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Speaker 1: done training, run will go yeah those were all junk

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Speaker 1: miles though, or how many of those were junk miles?

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Speaker 1: So what are junk miles? Term? That's been around for

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Speaker 1: a really long time, you know, back in the jogging days.

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Speaker 1: But if you look him up today, you know one

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Speaker 1: of the definitions will be Junk miles are miles that

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Speaker 1: you run that don't produce a specific physiological benefit. I

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Speaker 1: have a small problem with that because running is running right.

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Speaker 1: When you run, you're going to uh get benefit right,

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Speaker 1: and the more miles you run, the greater the results.

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Speaker 1: You know, top marathoners do a hundred plus miles per week,

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Speaker 1: but there are different levels, different paces, different intensities that

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Speaker 1: do deliver different results. And Matt Fitzgerald one of the

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Speaker 1: best of the best who have interviewed and will have

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Speaker 1: on again. He's got a brand new book out. You know,

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Speaker 1: he talks about the principle, which is interesting because we

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Speaker 1: talk about twenty with diet, but it also holds true

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Speaker 1: to certain people's goals with running and other sports, but

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Speaker 1: running specifically from att triathlon as well. What does that mean.

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Speaker 1: It means that your runs should be done easy, should

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Speaker 1: be done hard, and you generally want to stay out

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Speaker 1: of the middle. So you could argue, and some articles

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Speaker 1: do that junk miles is that middle training the you

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Speaker 1: can call it tempo. I just did a show on

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Speaker 1: that tempo pace. I also refer to it as the

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Speaker 1: gray zone. So the gray zone is kind of exercising

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Speaker 1: at an intensity that's not super hard, it's not super easy.

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Speaker 1: It's in the middle. It's the goldilocks, you know. It's

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Speaker 1: not too hot, not too cool, it's right just perfect,

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Speaker 1: right in the middle. But that's where people like to stay.

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Speaker 1: They're not torturing themselves at the higher intensities, they're not

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Speaker 1: going super slow. But listen, there's benefit to that. Of

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Speaker 1: course there is. Of course there is. So I agree

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Speaker 1: about the physiological benefits and specific physiological adaptations. Most of

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Speaker 1: you don't care. Yes, there's significant you know number of

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Speaker 1: my listeners who are competing and and trying to you know,

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Speaker 1: better themselves at their specific races and race distances at

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Speaker 1: age group awards and things like that. I get it.

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Speaker 1: But yes, you want to move, you want to move frequently.

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Speaker 1: So junk miles kind of a harsh term, uh for

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Speaker 1: people just want to go out and run. You know,

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Speaker 1: I have many friends who go out and run three

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Speaker 1: four miles a couple of times a week. Are those

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Speaker 1: junk miles because they're not going hard and they may

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Speaker 1: not be going easy enough. No, there's other benefits, there's

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Speaker 1: mental benefits. There's no junk miles when it comes to

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Speaker 1: mental benefits, I would argue, actually, many people want to

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Speaker 1: be at that junk mile pace for that very reason,

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Speaker 1: and so I'm gonna clarify it in that way. But

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Speaker 1: if you're a high performing athlete, if you're you know,

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Speaker 1: really putting in the miles and you want the specificity, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't go out and just you know, run a

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Speaker 1: bunch of miles without a goal. And that's why if

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Speaker 1: you are someone who's competing, every workout has a purpose. Ideally,

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Speaker 1: what is the goal of this workout? Is it hills?

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Speaker 1: Is it speed? Is it build endurance? But then yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to be necessarily in that tempo zone,

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Speaker 1: and most coaches don't prescribe too much tempo work for

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Speaker 1: that very reason. Go hard, go easy, go home. So

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Speaker 1: we can make the argument that yes, chunk miles are

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Speaker 1: that pace in between that don't produce a specific physiological benefit.

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Speaker 1: But I don't always need to produce a specific physiological benefit.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes I just want that hit a serotonin. But there

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Speaker 1: you have it, right, It's a great way to kind

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Speaker 1: of look at the science and sure specificity of training

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Speaker 1: makes a difference. When you have those type of goals,

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Speaker 1: many of you don't many of you just want to

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Speaker 1: get the heck out of the house right, get away

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Speaker 1: from the kids, get away from the spouse, and run

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Speaker 1: some really fun junk miles. So I'm still gonna tell

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Speaker 1: my dad that the vast majority of the miles he

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Speaker 1: runs are junk and the vast majority of the miles

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Speaker 1: my brothers run are junk miles. But maybe those are

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Speaker 1: the best. I am Tom Holland. This is Fitness Disrupted,

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Speaker 1: Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.