Junk Miles

Junk Miles

On the completion of the marathon race, I could proclaim that I was drenched in miles and miles of training. Post marathon, I took time off to recover with plenty of time to...

I started running all over again, trying to pull off the tricks that got me a great marathon experience - lots of consistent confident mileage...  Not knowing the running world so well, I jumped back into the 5 k race game thinking it would be a cinch since I easily completed a full on marathon!   Wasn't I pleasantly surprised...   If you're a runner like I am not, then you already know the answer, I was "please no slow" (meaning please nobody see how slow I am).

Upon finding out that my bag of tricks had cobwebs, I stumbled on a phrase everyone knew but me, "Junk Miles"

Everything is bad for you!

Now junk miles has deep meanings to runners.  But I'm not very clear.  When I hear "Junk Miles", I think of "Junk Food".   I think of the commonality of each phrase, I look for the origin.

"Junk Food" was not a well defined term, but we all well know what we think it means.  When fast food restaurants first came to the scene, they were fantastically innovative.  They could create meals out of regular everyday consistencies to develop amazing experiences that encouraged our survival...  As crowd survival inbred with abundance of energy sources, those fast food restaurants embellished experience and plasticated into a morph of "Junk Food".

Currently today, we are so afraid of Junk we try to reinvent through worship facets of specialization of labor, that being the glorification of chefs and variety.  Chefs are great and I appreciate their creativity, consistency and sustainability.  Chef craze to the media assumes junk is magically out of the window.  There are even Chefs that have no tolerance and would banish anyone that was flawed - we are sold - Junk Food is conquered.  But why isn't the farmer glorified delivering the foods to the chef?  Wouldn't that help a bit? Would not the source of foods the chef uses have any value?   You get where I am going, once experience is plasticized and overshadows and basis of reality, everything really becomes "Junk Mentality" regardless of how it is conquered... At least, that is one way to associate origin with current trends.  I am not suggesting we can't enjoy at the cost of health, but rather am merely trying to understand why health has been pushed by reliance on ambiance.  I am just trying to understand how we can allow junk to become so commonplace?  Maybe there is a better answer, I am just exploring through comparisons.

Running itself could be thought of as an activity of preventative maintenance. If running is thought of as preventative maintenance, then "Junk Miles" could not be associated with "Junk Food", which could not be associated with "Junk Mentality" if health is a high priority.  So where does the term Junk Miles come from if it is not Junk?

What does it mean?

There have been some studies to suggest that too much running stresses the heart and propels it to adjust in ways that would not suit long term.  There are other long term studies to statistically conclude that running has a bell curve of it's own with too less or too much causing long term destruction to health.  On the other hand, other studies statistically correlate high mileage to faster race finishes.

However, let's not rehash arguments against whether too much miles is good or bad for health or performance.  Rather, let's just understand what "Junk Miles" means.  Remember, I am new to the term and everyone already knows what it means, or at least think they know what it means as well as what Junk Food means.   Can I suggest that Junk Miles is a "Junk Mentality" such that we engage in miles to blindly overcome more essential factors of training and great health?

For example, do we run more to avoid stretching?  To we run more to avoid strength training?  Do we run more to avoid drills?  Do we run more to avoid recovery?  If we do, then that is more related to "Junk Mentality", would it not?

Forget about whether "Junk Miles" is generically bad or good for health.  We all know if we are cheating ourselves for not engaging in an activity to avoid or overshadow essentials for better overall health and well being.

Focus

As for myself, I was relieved to recently discover the term "Junk Miles".  What that meant for me was that it was okay to focus on drills, okay to focus on strength, okay to focus on stretching and definitely super okay to enable recovery.  It is great to know that I can potentially do well in the running world without having to run every free cycle that I am privileged.  I was once convinced I had to run twice a day to be able to enjoy the running world, I tried it and it did become enjoyable.  Yet that enjoyment should be taken in stride.  At least for me, only a short few months of the year would I engage in "Junk Miles" safely such that it wouldn't become a "Junk Mentality"... but at some points it really did for me until my motivation took charge.

Since I have been running less and focusing more on quality, enabling less Junk Miles, I assure you that my training is drastically different from marathon training.  I can outline the difference easily between the two types of training:

More Miles Pros

• More time to experience and learn to relax while running
• More engaged with the elements of the outdoors, almost feeling a part of it
• Heart beat took a while to know the activity was fine and eventually slowed down
• Found a consistent pace that I would repeat day in and day out
• Slowly but surely, I could build more mileage and more mileage

More Miles Cons

• When I was done a run, I was done, no stretching, no strength training, no drills
• When I wanted to do drills or strength I felt I should hold off for the next big run
• If I wasn't running, I felt as if I should be running
• There were tingles everywhere, the worry of injury was prevalent... injuries were prevalent
• Mental walls created from running too much can really be draining

Less Miles Pros

• I had time in-between running sessions to relax and avoid compound traces to injury
• I could do drills whenever I wanted and had energy for it
• I could do strength training whenever I wanted and had energy for it
• I could stretch all the time... all the time
• Once quality improvements set in, improvements really set in

Less Miles Cons

• Dealing with quality hurts and takes a lot of hurt to improve
• Engaging in Anaerobic activities can put a stop to the fun quickly
• Technical training requires a lot of coaching and support
• If the energy and motivation is not there, quality go down, junk sets in

Since I have discovered the term Junk Miles, I have sincerely been happy to take a break from the cons of high mileage.  It has been a while and now I am missing the high mileage world.   For a while, I would like to explore the world of less mileage, higher quality.  Nevertheless, Junk Miles is only Junk Mentality if it is used to avoid important aspects of training, balance and variety.