Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore, and today we are joined by two of our Empirical Cycling coaches. GC is back from the last episode, and Gediminas is back also. So thank you, everybody, for listening. And if you are new here, please subscribe if you like what you're hearing. And if you are coming back, thank you so much for coming back. We love having you. And if you want to support the podcast because you're apparently liking it so much, you can always do so by giving us a nice rating wherever you listen to podcasts. A glowing review always helps a lot. Sharing the podcast with friends is always, of course, the best thing you can do. Donate to the show because we are ad-free. You can always do so at empiricalcycling.com slash donate. And if you would like to email us for coaching or a consultation, if you want to keep coaching yourself, that's fine, empiricalcycling at gmail.com or head over to the website and I've got a contact form with some background information that would be great if you could provide as well. And if you want to ask us a question, do so at empiricalcycling on Instagram. I didn't put up any questions because I have to catch a plane in a little bit and we will not have time, unfortunately, but I wanted to get a podcast out anyway and touch base with you, the good people. Also, I do a week in AMAs over there, and we just wrapped up a good one. So that's, you know, probably look for that on Saturday up in the stories. My main feed is kind of dead these days. So sorry about that, but maybe we'll get back to some memes soon. All right. So today we wanted to touch on junk files because I think junk files is one of the first terms I ever heard where I wasn't really sure what it meant. And I think the person who said it to me wasn't also very sure what it meant. I wanted to actually throw it to you guys first because I think junk miles gets tossed around a lot, right? So, Gidiminis, why don't you tell me kind of what your thoughts are on how junk miles are perceived by a lot of the people that you see on, you know, forums and whatnot? Yeah, I spend quite a lot of time on forums, too much. But the upside is that I guess I'm pretty aware of. when people are talking. And I think most people make the assumption that junk miles is simply zone three, basically tempo rides, kind of hard, but not too hard. And these can be definitely one type of junk rides, but not the only type. 

Interesting, because I've heard it the other way. So I think this is part of the confusion on the definition of what a junk mile is. So I've heard junk miles as in you are riding too easy to get any adaptation. GC, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, in my experience, junk miles has always been like any... Any riding you're not doing in like a specific zone, usually zone two, right? I'm using air quotes, you can't see that. You know, I've been on many rides with people here locally and, you know, we're like discussing something or whatever and I always get a pointed comment of, oh, I'm riding too easy right now. And I just... And at this point, I just stopped commenting, right? Like, I remember, you know, I will always try to get him to see it my way, right? And I'm like, you know, there's no such thing. If you're riding long, it doesn't matter. But yeah, it definitely seems to be more, in my experience, riding too easy for too long, right? I think that's been my experience with quote-unquote junk models. Yeah, and... I think one of the big turning points I had around junk miles was when I was coaching somebody who retired. And that meant doing a lot less commuting during the day and immediately, well, not immediately, but like in a couple weeks, lost a decent amount of fitness, like a noticeable amount. And I had... Power data on those commutes. And then I saw similar things happen later in the pandemic, where people would stop commuting and lose fitness. And those commutes, I think by a lot of definitions, especially by what I heard 15 years ago, all of those revolved around commuting or just kind of noodley rides. Like, I'm just going to go out and kind of... Spin to Vibes, and sometimes I'll push, sometimes I won't. And so I think my definition of junk miles is I'm going to make this as broad as possible, which is my get-out-of-jail-free card with any kind of definition. It's anything that adds fatigue without any real benefit. So I think there's a lot of ways that we could tackle this. So I think maybe we should start with volume. So I've, of course, been on record many times saying that total volume is kind of a big driver of adaptation and the intensity is almost irrelevant. And, you know, like in the AMPK episode, we saw that intensity is basically absolutely irrelevant for the adaptations that people get. studies that were looked at in that meta. And that's basically what I find in practice. And what I find in practice also is that especially when it comes to actual endurance, like fatigue resistance or durability or whatever people want to call it these days, total volume is a huge driver of that. And so I've never really thought of going out and not being in quote-unquote zone two as a problem because I've never in practice seen it be a problem. So I think for me, the big problem I see is that when somebody's doing like 8, 10 hours a week and they go, wow, when I go to 12, man, I just over-train so much. Is that something that you've heard as well? Or what are your thoughts there? Because I think that that's, yeah, what do you guys think? Yeah, that definitely sounds familiar and often. When I see this happening, I also see people doing all the endurance rise at 65% FTP, usually even higher, like 70, 75%. Yeah, 70, 75. And it's almost always a very round number, either 70 or 75. 200 watts. Everybody's zone 2 is 200 watts. Oh, yeah, for sure. 280 to 350. Yeah, for sure. It's never 190 or 180, it's absolutely 200. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely around numbers fallacy of some sort as well. Can we get, can we redo our power number system to be base like, I don't know, something where once you actually hit 150 watts, the hundreds column turns over into a two? I think we talked about this in our private Discord channel and we just said people need to buy Shimano power meters. 

You can't see this, but GC is losing his shit right now. That is... Oh, yeah. Okay. Well-roasted. Please continue. You just made me lose every thought I had. Yeah. But also... I think this question, this topic about junk miles and zone 2 endurance, right, becomes more popular around the winter because people are doing lower volume than usual and they are trying to really maximize the gains. So sometimes people ask me like, you know, normally I'm doing 15 hours during the summer, I'm now doing 8 or 10. Should I do all my endurance rides at LT1, which is always 200 Watt, of course. Yeah, it's always a tricky conversation to handle because, I mean, sure, it does make sense that, you know, increasing the intensity of your easy rides will increase the training load, but it's so likely to backfire. And when it does backfire, usually it doesn't backfire like in a few days, but more like in a month because people are very good at detecting acute fatigue where like, oh, I did a very hard workout yesterday, therefore I'm tired today. But when it comes to endurance rides being too hard, the fatigue accumulates over months and people get into that state that you probably refer to as fatigue security blanket. Well, people are tired, but they feel pretty good about it. Although you can see that if you look back to workout two months ago, three months ago, and that's why people should always leave feedback, you can see the tone in the comments slowly changing from being pretty happy to optimistic, excited to overall negative. people being glad that they survived their workout instead of like, hey, I felt great. I could have done more. Yeah, I think also when people start getting under that fatigue security blanket, it also starts to become about the sunk cost fallacy. I've done so much training to improve my fitness two years. Why would I Bothered Resting because I'm just going to lose everything I gained. And I think that that could be also a part of where it comes from because, I mean, even if you are not doing your endurance rides too hard, I think one of the things that happens is that even on the harder rides, when people start to see some fitness sliding away after they've been training for, you know, four, six, eight months straight, the instinct is to double down. instead of pull back. I mean, that's what we do as coaches all the time is we have the experience and hopefully wisdom to say, no, we need to go the other way with this. I've got clients where, I mean, we actually talked about this a little bit in our last coaching meeting where I was talking about doing less with people than you expect and seeing benefits, especially if they've got a track record of, Doing Better After More Rest. And, you know, one of my clients has led to some UCI podiums with this strategy where I think previous years I hadn't been resting him as much and he would take rest despite my programming and workouts. And then he would be like, all right, feeling ready to get back to it. And I'm like, this guy's auto-regulating like a champ right now. And it taught me about... exactly what he needs, seeing somebody auto-regulate like that. Anyway, so the, yeah, GC, what are your thoughts on the volume and the security blanket? Yeah, the volume, you know, it's, the volume thing, obviously we profess, you know, like, I wouldn't say volume, I don't think we've ever said volume's king, but like, for whatever reason, that phrase comes to mind. You know, when I have console calls, with potential clients, you know, I always, well, aside from just having a general conversation with them, I always, you know, tell them like, hey, you know, like, do your research, look around, you know, locally and stuff like that. And I always tell them, if you ever meet someone and you ask them a training-related question and they give you an emphatic answer, I tell them to walk away slowly, right? Because usually the answer is, it depends. And in my opinion, maybe the only question that, and the answer, it kind of doesn't depend, is like, if you ride more, you'll get better, but then there is a small, it depends, it's like, and then that independence is the volume, and more importantly, how you can recover for a certain volume, right? So like, if you go from, I don't know, 12 hours to 20 hours, right? Are you still able to recover from that? Like, yes, you're riding more and theoretically you should get better, but only if you're recovering from it. And how that blurs into the junk miles, you know, concept, you know, I think, yeah, trying to ride it too hard. You know, I've, I have two, I tell people two things when I talk about like volume or just like riding long. I say, the longer you ride, the less important. watts are. That's what I tell them, first and foremost. And if that doesn't get to them, I usually paint it this way. I ask them, like, how many, you know, if, if, how many watts can you average in three hours? And of course, the answer is 200. Yeah, exactly. 200 watts, right? And I'm like, okay, cool. How many watts can you, and then I say, can you average 200 watts for five hours or six? And they're like, Maybe, or the answer is usually maybe, or no, or it would be really hard. And then I say, okay, can you average 150 watts for five hours or six hours? And they're like, yeah, that's easy. And then I pause and I ask them, which one was the better endurance ride? And then you could immediately see the world falling apart in your head. And then, of course, they realized that the answer is the five to six hours at 150 watts. And then I'm like, well, there you go. Right. So, you know, I think, yeah, I think it's just this security blanket thing. It's just like this thing with the zones and whatnot, you know. And I mean, like, honestly, like, sometimes I wouldn't say I suffer from it. I catch myself thinking about it. Like, Saturday I rode. a little over two hours. I did what you had suggested to me, the two times 12 at like Supra threshold. And then like afterwards, I was just like, dude, like riding home with like 120 watts. And I'm like, should I be riding harder? And I'm like, no, stop it. Is there anything left in your legs to ride harder? Right, exactly. I'm like, shut up. Let me just ride home and not feel like deaf, you know, by the time I get home. But yeah, I think there's... You know, there's a lot of things that come into play with the volume and the zones and, you know, and all that stuff. Yeah. Well, let me give an example about a couple of my clients who have done training camps, let's call it, when they've signed up with me. And, you know, it's like somebody who typically rides like 10 to 12, maybe 14, 15 hours a week. And, okay, I've got a week off from work and I want to ride 20, 25, maybe sometimes 30. The big question then becomes, how do you pace it? And I think what I've seen previously from the people I've worked with this on is that doing that volume as a giant step up like once or twice a year, it usually leads to an absolute truckload of fatigue. Then it's like, okay, I've got to take a week to recover. And then like a week, maybe I'll start getting back into training a little bit. And like, you're just wrecked. And I usually have people riding easy enough that I think a lot of them initially would have considered it junk miles. Like, oh, I'm going to do 20 hours at this pace. Like, why would I even do 20 hours? It's not even worth doing. It's like, that's, first of all, this is sustainable. pace to do that at. And so you're going to get through the week, not wrecked, maybe take a day or two, maybe three to chill, and then you can get right back to training and you will feel those benefits immediately. You're going to go, wow, I feel, this is a horrible phrase and I don't know why I use it. There's no rigorous definition of this, but people usually say, I feel a lot more aerobic after a big week like that. I have felt the exact same thing. Like, I remember the first time I did a double day, my second ride, I was like, wow, I feel a lot more aerobic right now. My breathing is higher and something like that. I don't know what the deal is. There's no way to actually measure that. But it's a vibe people get. And I think also the other thing is that people expect to get a massive FTP bump from a volume like that. And a lot of this comes down to kind of what we talk about internally, which is like, how many ways are there to measure fitness? I mean. We can each come up with like 10 and we wouldn't even have that much overlap between the three of us. So I think that when it comes to volume, realizing that there's really no such thing as junk miles is, well, even if you ride that 20-hour week for the first time way too hard, I still think it's not junk miles. It'll still give you benefit. The question is just the fatigue on the other side. And fatigue management is a big part of what we're all doing here with training plans and coaching and whatnot. So I think the other thing that comes up here is that I wanted to talk about people's expectations. We kind of touched on this recently in one of our internal chats, but also it's probably worth discussing here, which is that I think a lot of people expect a lot of their training rides to wreck them. And I think that I had put this down as, what did I say it was? Like it was training versus exercise, right? One of you guys remember? I don't remember you saying that, but that definitely sounds right. I mean, one thing I think when you and I were working together, I don't know if you told me this or if I just kind of stumbled upon this, maybe both, but I remember when I was like going on long rides, if I came home and could tell myself, yeah, I could probably have done two more hours of that, then that would tell me, and that usually was like at the end of five hours, for example, that usually would tell me like, you know, I I paced it correctly, I ate it enough. And to clarify, like, I felt that way because I came home and I was not wrecked, you know, to clarify. And that's why I felt I would come home and be like, yeah, I probably could have done two more hours. Of course, the question might be then for the listeners, like, well, why didn't you do two more hours? Well, I mean, I have a life outside of bikes, that's why. Yeah, listen to the parenting podcast to hear more about that. I think here's another thing you brought up too. Actually, no, one last thought on that. Very last one, I swear. I remember when I was starting to work with super, super elite athletes, people who had grand tours. potential selection for Grand Tours, or they've got the big classics on their calendar, trying to qualify for Worlds or the Olympics or whatever it is. When I started working with those people, I remember saying, ride at a pace you could do for eight hours. And the response was usually, do you know what I can do for eight hours? Think racing unbound. And I don't necessarily think that If you have a couple eight-hour rides in your training block, doing every one like you're racing unbound is a sustainable practice. So that's my last thought on it is, you know, when it comes to queuing, how hard one of those rides should be, I mean, that's one of the first times I learned, like, this is maybe not the right queue for everybody. So if you're somebody who usually does, like, 10 hours a week, it might be a fine queue. Like, if you could do it for, If you've got a five-hour ride and you can do it for like seven or eight, perfect. But if you are very, very well-trained, you usually do six-hour rides and you're like, oh, what can I do for eight? Like, you could probably blow yourself up pretty good for eight. So yeah, maybe watch the cues and knock it back another notch. It kind of reminds me of, so... Computer Programming. You've got to be careful, like, what you do or, you know, what you code because... Oh, God, I forgot I've got two nerds, like, real nerds right here. Because the thing is, the computer will always do what you tell it to do, right? And so how that applies, like, you've got to be careful what you tell your athletes because they're going to do exactly what you tell them to do. Well, you know, for the most, what one should hope, right? And so, yeah, like, if you tell your client, like, yeah, go right at your eight-hour pace. I mean... If there's just some kind of aerobic monster, they're going to see that construction and be like, all right, cool, bet, you know? Here we go. And then gas up the car. Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah, got to be careful with that one. Yeah, I mean, maybe for the knuckle-draggers among us, the analogy is like, if you turn off stability control and traction control in your car, the car will do what you tell you, what you tell it to do, including kill you, if you ask it to. So, yeah, you got to be careful with that stuff. Okay. Moving on to GC, one of your points was that Junk Miles is like any riding that's not in a specific zone. I love this idea. Actually, Gediminas, why don't you give us your thoughts on this and we'll have GC kind of expand. Yeah, that's a good one. I think Like, when it comes to giant mouths and zones, I think less about zones, but more about the purpose of what are you trying to do during the ride, if that makes sense. So... Expand on that, yeah, keep going. Yeah, because especially if you do workouts above threshold, then zones stop making sense because, you know... People can do all kinds of stuff above thresholds. I mean, the 75% FTP thing to separate Zone 2 from Zone 3 is pretty arbitrary round number. So, yeah, I think more about the purpose than the zones. So if someone's purpose is to build volume, I think the goal is to write at the intensity where you can build volume, you can write more than you did last time. It doesn't really matter if it falls under zone one or zone two. Same with working at endurance at threshold or subthreshold, so that's steady state FTP intervals or sweet spot intervals or anything in between. I think what really matters is did you do more than the last time than where exactly on which exact zone it fell under like did you do at 88% FTP and that was zone 3 or did you do at 90% FTP and that was zone 4 you know it's pretty arbitrary and it achieves the same goal so Yeah, that's how I approach it. I think about what was the goal for the workout, what we tried to achieve with this workout, and did we do it? And zone distribution is a neat tool to analyze it more stochastic, right? But that's not the achieving a specific zone distribution is not the primary goal of the workout. Yeah, and I think actually this is where definitions and arbitrary lines drawn in the sand can screw us. So, I mean, it's like, and it also depends on how you interpret training zones. Like, if you do a group ride that has, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes in the zone 5, are you going to go, wow, I really worked my VO2 max today? when you were never on the gas enough for long enough to really be actually at VO2 max. Your heart rate's just high or your power's just high. Does that equate to the same thing? I mean, I think anybody who's done a season of cyclocross and has not seen their VO2 max skyrocket will know that that's not the case because that's like all a cyclocross race is. It's like your heart rate's jacked to the ceiling and you are breathing out of your eyeballs. and you're like, man, how come I'm not seeing my VH2 matters go off? What's up with this? So yeah, but also like when it comes to like the lines drawn in the sand, I mean, for the power zones, I mean, right, Coggin meant them to be descriptive at first, right? And I believe I've seen him say, and I don't necessarily agree with this myself, but you know, if you're If your endurance ride is not like 65% of FTP or something like that, then it's not worth doing. And I think that's absolute bullshit. But, you know, so sorry. It's just my coaching experience is too deep at this point to think that it matters that much. I mean, what's the arbitrary difference? I mean, is 64% meaningfully different than 66% of FTP. It's not a light switch. It's not like a Mondrian, where on this side of the line, it's yellow. On this side of the line, it's blue. Anyway, GC, this is your idea originally, so please take the torch. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things I want to say. Kind of give examples, like, I'll apply them to me, right? You know, I, if you listened to the previous podcast, I ride indoors a lot, right? And, you know, just out of necessity, just out of life, it's just easier for me sometimes, that with my son and whatnot. And I remember I was riding two weeks ago with a Strava. frenemy, if you will. A guy who I became friends with after we kept on going back and forth stealing each other's K-arms. And if you know me, you're like, that's totally GC. That's like every guy. Like, you get in a fight, like, fists are thrown, and then the next day, you're besties for life. No, no, dude, it was hilarious. Because, like, we just go back and forth, like, you know, it would take a bit, like, you know, because I obviously had my own training, but, like, we were going back and forth for a while, and then eventually, he's just like... Hey, do you want to go for a ride sometime? I'm like, yeah, of course, let's do it. Anyways, we were riding, and he had broken his clavicle, and so he's like, yeah. He's like, hey, do you want to go for a ride? You know, just one on your easy days. And I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, like, I'm riding two hours today. And we were riding, and he was just like, he was like, dad, this is a lot easier than what I usually go. And then, I forget what we were talking about, but he commented on my indoor rides, of course, being a Strava. friend of me, if you will, like, he's looking at my stuff, and he's just like, yeah, dude, I see what you average on your indoor rides, and, like, that's what I do on my, like, my noodling around rides, and keep in mind, this is, like, maybe 140 watts, so I'll do, like, when I ride indoors at endurance, right? And again, I'm using air quotes here. And there's a couple reasons for that. I mean, like, you know, I don't... That's, like, half your FTP, roughly. Actually, yeah, you're right. Yeah, it is. Right, so, like, 50% of my FTP. But, like, even... You know, this is maybe something like I think you and I kind of discovered when we're working together. And I just love this now. It's like, and I tell this to my clients, I'm like, ride into watts. Ride into your watts. And for zone two, you know, like I'll start on my trainer. And keep in mind, like I'm, well, nowadays I'm like 68 kilo, right? You know, 149-ish. Man, I start my rides at like 80 watts. You know, like, just start pedaling, right? 80 watts, and then eventually it gets to 90, eventually it gets to 100, and then, you know, like, maybe, I don't know, 20 minutes in, and usually 20 minutes in, and I'm not forcing it, you know, sometimes it'll take less, sometimes it'll take longer. I look down, I'm like, hey, look at that, I'm doing 160, 170 watts, right? Cool. You know, and so, like, that's, like, you know, one example for me, especially when it comes to endurance, like, the whole, like, zones thing, you know, like, riding specific zones or, you know. and whatnot. And another thing that we spoke about, I think in the last coach meeting was, I forget what we were talking about, but then I posted on a chat was, I said, tempo equals sweet spot equals FTP. And what I meant was like these, these zones or, you know, type of intervals, like at the end of the day, they lead to the same place. And, you know, if you think about that, then like it definitely, gives, you know, gives one pause because then you realize like, oh, okay, you know, if, if I can't nail 100% FTP today for, I don't know, 10 minutes or whatever, you know, like it gives one like more, more leeway into, into the workout or the goal, like what, give me this, we're just saying like the goal of the workout, but what is the goal of the workout? And then if you realize that like maybe you're not, you know, chained to these, zones or these numbers or these ranges, then I think long-term it can be beneficial because you let go of that paradigm and now you can actually move forward with your training as opposed to being like, oh, I failed the workout or I couldn't do the numbers, I went home. You know what I mean? So there's always something to get out of the ride that you're on even if you can't hit the zones or whatever. Yeah, well, that was also... a lot of the time. It was meant to be more in terms of all these things lead to roughly equivalent adaptations early in training, especially the first few months. The questions about fatigue aside, if you're not hitting FTP watts today really well, can you do sweet spot or tempo? Is that better? There's a lot to unpack there. The answer is... obviously it depends. I usually suggest people go a little conservative on that where it's like if you can't hit the target really just most of the time bail out unless it's like maybe I'm indoors today and FTP on the trainer indoors sucks ass and so I'm just gonna not do that and I'll ride sweet spot today instead and like you know you can get roughly equivalent adaptations if you can do sweet spot successfully. So with that asterisk you know you're right because I think a lot of people think like, all right, I've got to get my FTP training in so I can get my FTP adaptations and I'm going to get my tempo training in so I can get my tempo adaptations. And they're equivalent, but they're not. Because a lot of where we get our equivalencies from these different intensities of training is actually from whole muscle homogenate. So we take a core sample of one of your quads, and we'll put it into a blender, and we're going to look at markers of mitochondrial density or something like that. And we see that roughly all of them lead to approximately equivalent adaptations, you know, in a certain timeframe. And so, are they truly equivalent? Are they not? Like, if we think about motor unit recruitment and stuff like that, like, maybe, like, we don't, there's not a lot of detail that we can actually flesh out there. There's a lot of first principles and theory. But, roughly speaking, you're absolutely correct that a lot of the definitions here are arbitrary. And the adaptations that we get are, for the most part, we can consider interchangeable. Because I have a lot of questions in the consults that I do, the formal ones, not the client intro calls. That's the GC that we usually call a consult. And that's fine. For me, it's like, that's where we sit down and I answer your training questions and give you the tools to keep coaching yourself and adjust your training as you go. So to me, that's a consult. And so when I do consults, a big question I get a lot of the time is from people who are indoors in the winter. They have lower volume and they say, can I bring up the volume as it gets warmer out? And the answer is like, yeah, of course. Okay, you've only got like 8-10 hours a week in the winter. How do you maximize your training adaptations? You just go a little harder, right? I mean, everybody kind of knows this already. You do a little sweet spot, you do a little tempo, you do some FTP work, you do a couple Zwift races, and when it gets warmer outside, you head out, you start bringing up the volume, and there's a lot of leverage you can pull there. And there's no one approach that's perfectly right or perfectly wrong. that podcast I did with Jem where they were looking at TT performances and no one training modality was any better than the other in terms of your performance there because, I mean, I remember seeing a clip from Jem on another podcast where they were like, so what do you do? And Jem's like, for TTs, just train, just train. It doesn't matter what you do, just train and you'll get there. So, GC, what's up? Yeah. This is not an original thought. I'm sorry. This is actually from another podcast. I won't name the podcast, but this is a long time ago I heard this. This falls in line to exactly what you're saying. They said all roads lead to PGC-1α, right? And I think that kind of applies here, right? At the end of the day, just train, right? And you'll lead to the adaptations that you might need for... performance, right? So, yeah. Yeah, that's also, that's having a very, it's mostly true. It's still, I would still call it a one-dimensional view of adaptation. And I'm not like, obviously, if you look at the podcast that I've done over the last couple of years, I've leaned into this. And actually, I was kind of glad to be, to be kind of past that series of like what effects are we aware of at this point that point to PGC-1α? Like what stressors can we apply? And so I think that, you know, it's roughly equivalent to thinking that like FTP is absolutely everything in terms of fitness. I mean, I've got some clients where we'll do like an FTP workout or two like once to twice a month. like once or twice a training block and otherwise it's very focused on other stuff. You know, this is especially the case for elite crit riders, super elite mountain bikers, that kind of stuff. Um, and you know, it's just, it all comes from basic gap analysis. You know, what are the demands of the event and where are you at now? What needs work? Um, so I wanted to, I've got two other ways to tackle junk miles and I wanted to talk about group rides first. So we're going to do a whole other podcast on like group rides versus structured training. But do you two think that most people, boy, that's a blanket question, that is going to not exactly be reflected by reality at all. But in your impression, generally speaking, put in as many qualifiers as I can. Do you seem to see that people consider group rides to be better, worse, or equivalent to structured training? And where are they in terms of like, do they count as junk miles? I think that it comes, yeah, sorry, this comes directly from, I'm not focused on any particular one zone. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people view group rides as a sort of guilty pleasure, where they think, I shouldn't be doing that, but I like them, and they apologize for doing group rides, and it's like, I mean, that's really cool. And to be honest, I wish some of my people, and you know who you are, did more group rides, because, you know. At some point you need to learn to handle your bike and rail the corners and you can't do that on Zwift yet. So I think whether group rides or jump miles or not are very personal. It depends on your strength weaknesses. But as Rory talked about in some of the recent podcasts, it's also fine to just have fun, you know, periodized fun. Like, if you stick to your structured workouts throughout the entire winter, you know, you are super consistent for four or five months straight, yeah, sure, just go for some group rides, have fun. You don't have to burn out doing rides in those, thinking that they'll be better somehow. I mean, they might be better, but... In the grand scheme of things, one or two group rides won't ruin the season unless you break your collarbone. That's always a risk. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're totally correct because a lot of it comes down to what needs work. I mean, I remember working with one client who There wasn't a lot of training where she lived, training races, group rides, or anything like that, between certain periods. And a race was pretty much the first race after a long build. And the question is really, how do we get you fit for racing? And we tried a bunch of different ways, and the way that we actually ended up finding it hit the right spot that you know, in lieu of really hard group rides, uh, and like, and actual races was, uh, um, I think, I forget if it was, if it was Zwift races or my, my whoosh races, I think it was my whoosh races over Zwift races, where it's like, you know, when you're getting like over that edge of, all right, I've really got to start digging deep now, I got to push in an uncomfortable way, that kind of, that kind of range of, of race pace where you're going, okay, yeah, this is definitely going to make me fitter at racing. And that's something that, you know, the entire time I've been coaching, I've been a proponent of that being a necessary part of training because it can hit stuff that training cannot. Like one of my clients did a race in Belgium yesterday or Saturday. It was not Flanders. Don't worry. And the comment was like, man, I haven't done this many accelerations out of corners in a long time. And we're talking like hours of, you know, hitting like, you know, peak watts or near peak watts out of every single corner because everybody in Belgium knows that if you take a corner too hot, you're probably going to hit cobbles in the next one and you're going to slide out and everything's going to be bad. So everybody takes those corners pretty chill. I was like, well, you know, it's not a lot we can do in training. We can do some of this in training, but none of it's going to hit the duration and the intensity of one of these actual races. And I've got training files and race files from my clients from Europe for the last couple of years. And like, you try to replicate that in training, that is a very, very tall ask. And I think that that's where... That's where group rides can really, especially if you pick the right group ride, it can be really, really beneficial for your fitness. And so I think that especially if it's going to work an aspect of fitness that's for some people maybe intangible in terms of like intensity and duration, or if it's going to help you get familiar with pack handling and being close to people. I know that coming out of the winter, especially coming out of the pandemic, that was a big problem. People forgot how to turn their bikes. Turned Next to People and Take an Elbow and Things Like That. Absolutely indispensable group rides and practice races. So, GC, you come from Miami. And there's what we might call a robust group ride culture there. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there's a group ride every day of the week, except Mondays. There might be one Mondays. And definitely, more than one on Tuesdays and Thursdays, like morning and evening. Anyways, yeah, so I was, thanks for saying that for Miami, because I was just going to say that just in case, just provide more context. If any listeners are in Miami, they'll know, or if you've ever been to Miami, you'll know. It's quite flat there. And yeah, Miami has a huge group right culture. It's just like, It's the thing to do, like, you know, if you have a decent amount of fitness, like you, the group rides there, and I live in Boulder now, I've lived here for 10 years, are unlike here, where like a group ride here might be like you and like five of your friends, right? Group ride there is an unsanctioned street race with you and 50 plus other people, right? And don't get me wrong, they're definitely fun. But if you're just in the middle of the pack, if you can imagine on a flat road with 50 plus other people, you're not doing much, right? Like, yeah, maybe you're going like 32 miles an hour, but maybe you're whisked along. Yeah, totally. Like, maybe you're doing 150 watts, right? You know? And when I was still coaching some people who live in Miami, and like, they would usually beg me to be able to do the group rides. And look, and I get it, right? Like, it's the thing to do. There's a social aspect to it. You're there with... 50 of your friends, right? It's fun and I get it, right? I get that part, but I always like to then show them after doing structured workouts versus a group ride, right? To show them like time and zone, to show them like TSS, to show them IF versus the group ride and then make them realize like, you're not really getting much out of this, right? You know, in terms of like training, I guess, right? You mean people who hit the group rides as they're training? Yeah, right. And then, you know, and to your point earlier, like, yeah, there's, you could get other, you know, maybe not non-tangible things out of group rides, pack handling skills, like all that kind of stuff, right? Like, and I get that, but you have to meet, I think you have to meet the person where they're at, right? And determine, do they need this? You know, do they, are they lacking the pack handling skills? Then yeah, of course, a group ride will be good. Do they, do they want to do it to sub a hard ride, right? And then. You know, usually, like, when a client has asked me, like, hey, could I do a group ride? I'll say, yeah, you know, and then afterwards, I'll look at how hard the group ride was or wasn't, right, to determine, I'm like, is this, was this a good, you know, sub for a structural workout? And, you know, I don't coach anyone from Miami anymore, so usually that's no longer the case where the ride isn't junk miles, to bring it back to the topic. But it certainly could be, right? And, like, you know, you have to, you know, I was there during Christmas break. I went back and I did a group ride and it was super windy that day and I'm like, oh, sweet, right? You know, and the thing is, too, like, you can do the group ride, sure, but, you know, if maybe, like, in my opinion, like, I apply this to myself, right? If you're at a certain fitness level and you still want to do the group ride, maybe because you don't want to do the structure workout, then let's make it hard on purpose, right? Don't just sit there and take a... Launch an attack every 10K. Dude, that's exactly what I was doing until I ripped the group apart and then eventually it was just me and three other guys rotating and then it being like, I don't know, 30 minutes of sweet spot. I was like, sweep, right? But I don't know if that... You know, that's not the case for everyone. You know, if you're, there's certainly like a lower fitness level or like new, you definitely get new gains from it. You know, if you are indeed someone new to the sport, but there's definitely a line where you, you know, you, you cross and now all of a sudden you need more, you need something else in order to get better. Right. And I, you know, I don't think this is the case anymore because last time I raced in Miami, I was quite shocked at the level of competition, but like, at least when I used to live there, It was, I was the, I was the, the, the pioneer? I don't know, that's not the right word. I was the one not doing the group rides and doing the intervals and staying away from the group rides, right? And then all of a sudden, like, I started to have results. And, you know, like, for me, like, the way I looked at it, I'm like, yeah, if everyone's doing the same thing, then how do you expect to get any better from that, right? like I'm gonna be doing this because like I'm no longer getting anything out of that and like in and even then sometimes I would jump into the group right but like I had a specific purpose and like it was just a poor man's motor pacing right where I and people hate it when they did this I like do my interval and they're like and then I create like a breakaway or something or chase someone back and then like you know three five minutes is up and like all right I'm done and then they'll look look at me and like Wait, what, what, what? You know, like, go back to the group and they'd be pissed. And then like, you know, five or so minutes later, I just do it again. You broke the unwritten rule of the group rides. What happened to the spirit of the group rides, do you see? Yeah, but yeah, I mean, like, you know, it could be junk miles, but again, like, as always, it depends, right? Like, you have to really sit down and figure out, what am I getting out of this? You know, and also kind of marry it to your level of fitness, right? And then again, if at the end of the day, it's just like, hey, I want to have fun, like, that's okay too, right? But just make sure that, you know, you're doing something else the rest of the week, right, in order to, I guess, you know, get better at whatever you may be, you know, training for. I have a thought on everybody doing the same type of training. I mean, if everybody does the same, training. Really, you kind of start to decrease the difference that training makes, and you are just left with the differences that you have genetically and naturally. And so I think that this points to kind of a, it's almost convergent evolution in a way, but also not because people end up in a different spot. Like if this were me going out and doing all these group rides, I would get some benefit, but I would not, I would get good at doing group rides, but like my level of fitness would not increase. To your point, at some point you have to go overload certain systems that you cannot usually do in a group ride. And I mean, I'm sure that there's a group ride somewhere in a place with like three to five minute hills and you just smash up all of them. That's like a good VO2 max workout. Or, you know, going to a group ride in Miami is going to be great for like poor man's motor pacing. Terrifying on public roads to do that with 50 people, by the way. I would not want to. Anyway. But I think that we're kind of getting to the last thing I want to touch on here, which is mental health. Just enjoying. How dare you? Just enjoy riding your bike unstructured in a way that doesn't improve or you think doesn't improve your fitness in a meaningful way. I think that that's probably one of the biggest benefits to what a lot of people would consider junk miles is enjoying it and having reduced stress and loving riding your bike. Who doesn't want to love riding their bike? I mean, don't we all? Isn't that the point? I think it's not everybody, but I've certainly seen cases where people will get to... I'm sorry, way to put this. Their stress levels over nailing their training perfectly outweigh the benefits of nailing your training perfectly on the negative end of the scale. The stress is too much because you're trying to hyper-optimize. I think we did a podcast about this a couple months ago, like avoiding over-optimization. So where are we at with just... Having some fun. This actually happened with one of my clients last week. We had a VO2max block scheduled, but after doing one workout, he messaged me saying, like, hey, you know what, I'm just not truly feeling like doing this. I'm just mentally burnt out from my work, and VO2max work just adds even more stress to my life. Can't Really Handle, Am I Enjoying It? So we talked and we just decided to do, for hard workouts, just to off-road hot laps, because by handling, off-road handling at speed was one of the skills he wanted to work on anyway. And he did that for about a week and he messaged me again saying, you know what, this was a really good decision, I'm glad he did this and I'm now eager to do intervals again. So, yeah. Yeah, and somebody's motivation can tell you a lot about the kind of work that they're ready for. I mean, especially if somebody's motivation starts to wane for structured stuff. I mean, what better way to cure that than to just get back to basics and just go enjoy smashing the pedals for an hour or two? I mean, I used to do this all the time back when I was... properly training. My favorite thing was to take my cyclocross bike out into the Blue Hills in Boston and just rip over the White Arrow Trail, which took me like 20, 25 minutes, something like that, and was not supposed to be a cyclocross bike trail. I usually rode with like four spare tubes and a pair of pliers to pull the dents out of my rims. So, but I had the best time doing that. And I also had a great time just kind of exploring new roads, like, you know, going south of Boston and kind of exploring down that way or heading west and seeing, oh, maybe I can, can I ride to Wachusett and back today and like, and PR my climb on it after having ridden out there or something like that, like dumb stuff, arbitrary stuff, meaningless stuff in the big scheme of things. But at the moment, were the right call, the right vibes. So what are your guys' thoughts on the balance between enjoying your training and having structured training? Because some people really enjoy having very rigidly structured training. It actually reduces their stress. Jeez, you're both raising your hands. Okay, wrong crowd. I'm kind of in the middle. I'm probably more average in that way. I also do this in the gym even to this day. Like I'll just be like, you know, I don't feel like doing this exercise. I want to do this exercise today instead. And in the big scheme of things, if I skip my planned exercise, who cares? It's not going to make a big difference, but I'm enjoying it. And I feel like that makes a bigger difference in the long term. So I think that this kind of, I'm going to tout that I had the best definition of junk miles. But you guys can vote on this. So my definition was anything that adds fatigue without any real benefit. And I think that mental health is a huge benefit. And I think in the especially acute term, in the short term of like, you know, a couple days to a couple weeks, sometimes just throwing out the training plan and just kind of doing whatever you feel like is absolutely the best training you can get. But in the long term, if you are really trying to really improve your fitness, especially if you've got lofty goals. I mean, there's no substitute for focused training, but it's not like it has to be, this stuff is not all or nothing, right? Yeah, I totally agree. And I think junk miles, junk rides are rides where you have no clear purpose, but having fun is it. Valid and Clear purpose. And for balancing fun and structure and improvements, I think sometimes people focus too much on short-term timelines, like next week, next month, because what really matters is the work you do over the season or over multiple seasons. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the concept of periodizing fun. I apply this to a few of my clients. I apply this to myself. That's not junk. That's just periodized, allocated fun. One thing I tell my clients is, you know, if you're not having fun anymore, stop doing it, right? I mean, it's just true of life, I guess, too. maybe job aside, right? But, yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, like you said, like, you know, take a, take a step back, you know, figure out why you're even doing this, right? Like, at the end of the day, we just love riding our bikes and if, you know. doing that middle intensity, going after that Strava KOM, doing the group ride, you know, whatever, riding during that 75% FTP is what's going to, you know, give you enjoyment, then do it, right? But, you know, I guess talk to your coach. If you have a coach, if you don't, you know, then... Flip a coin, consult a Ouija board. I mean, you know... Another thing I like to say is listen to your body. That's easier said than done. Some people I would not want listening to their body. Sometimes the motivation outstrips actually listening. Oh, this was a 1 out of 10 RPE. Five hours at 78% FTP. Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head where if you have lofty goals, then there definitely should be a balance, some kind of structure to what you're doing. But, you know, I think what I said in the previous podcast, like, you know, learn to love the process because then that ultimately gets you the results, you know? So I think that's an important thing to always keep in mind. Yeah, have a clear picture of the results you want and enjoy the process. And know that the process is a lot more malleable. than a lot of people would consider it to be. I mean, we know this from practice. We know this from the literature. Junk miles are not the boogeyman that a lot of people think they are. Because we can think about junk miles in a lot of different ways. And we can think about junk miles as, you know, really kind of the ultimate, it depends. Like, were these miles junk? I don't know. Were they junk for you? Did you enjoy it? Did you, you know, what time of season are you in? Like, is it adding more fatigue than it's adding fitness? What's your purpose for the ride? Like, I think also a lot of people, like mid-season, mid-race season, like GC, you've experienced this, I'm sure. Like, if you, you know, you do like 3x20 or 2x30 FTP intervals kind of early season and then you start racing, like, if you are in the middle of like three weeks in a row of racing, twice a weekend. And you're like, man, I got to do some, I got to do some FTP maintenance. You know, 2x20 sweet spot, 3x10 FTP, something like that. Stuff, or even 5-minute intervals. One of my favorite FTP workouts for like maintenance is like 6x5. It's, and I think in a lot of ways, you might think, that's a dumb workout. I've certainly heard that comment many times when I've given it to people. Like, isn't this going to not do anything? It's like, Give it a shot. Tell me if you wanted to do more. And usually the answer was, wow, this was great. It kind of hit what I needed to hit, and it didn't add too much fatigue. And so, is it a junk workout? Not really. Really? What's the context? Like, what's your purpose here? And sometimes, just not working out is a good workout. Like, not getting any miles. A lot of people might consider junk miles. or any riding under 200 watts, junk miles. It's not the case. So yeah, I don't think junk miles is really the big deal that a lot of people make it out to be. Thoughts? I will say what you just said, like no riding is people consider junk miles. I don't disagree, right? Because obviously, you know, taking a day off, you know, it's good. You know, I think we need it. Everyone needs it every now and then or, you know, once a week, whatever. I know when I take a day off, people are like, you didn't ride today. But something else, you know, that especially tech time crunched clients that I have, you know, they're like, they'll apologize because they couldn't do the hour. They only did 30 minutes or whatever, right? And I tell them, like, listen. We've never given people shit for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, totally. But I always tell them, like, look, man, like, 15 minutes is better than no minutes, you know? Yeah. Do you feel better at the end of it? Great. Right? Like, you worked up a little sweat because you all of a sudden warmed up and that's all you had time for? Then so be it. But at least you rode, you know? Maybe you got some endorphins out of it, right? Like you said, like, you feel good afterwards. Like, so is that junk miles? Definitely not, right? Would you have been better off doing nothing? I don't know. I mean, I'm not living with you, you know, your entire life, but yeah, I think, I hate to always say this, but yeah, it definitely depends on your circumstance, but yeah. So, last question. What's everybody's best example of junk miles, where it was truly junk? My example, I was coaching somebody who refused to take a car or a Vespa or e-bike or anything like that to commute to work. And on like a 360-watt FTP, twice a day, he would average about 280 watts on a 30-minute commute. And he did this five days a week. and I was like, you gotta do this easier. He's like, yo, I'm so time crunched on like my commute and I'm like, this is not gonna go well and I don't even think you're gonna make it to the end of this like training block of three weeks. Please ride easier. And I failed in my duty as a coach to help negotiate and get him to ride a little easier and he ended up quitting altogether. quitting competitive cycling, if I recall correctly, before the end of that training block. Because he was like, man, I am burned out. And I'm like, you are commuting way too hard. But, you know, in that he didn't feel like he had a choice in that situation, and I couldn't convince him otherwise. And maybe, you know, maybe he was absolutely right that that's exactly what his time crunch was. And in which case, you know, adding structured training on top of something like that, like, you can't do that. That's way too much stress. There's no recovery there. And especially if you're going to try to do it 365 days a year or whatever the – what's five out of seven of 365? Like 200 whatever days a year. There's some junk miles for you. It costs somebody being a competitive cyclist. 

I have a general definition, if you will, to not throw any clients under the bus. Junk miles are the unplanned riding you do that you didn't previously discuss with your coach. Sometimes it's not so bad. I've got a standing order with all of my clients. If you can ride a little more. not on recovery days, but if you can ride a little extra volume, it's usually fine. Yeah, but, uh, you know, throwing in that, like, Zwift race, totally unplanned group ride or Zwift race, whatever, on the, yeah, especially on the recovery day, and I'm like, dude, what? You know, like, it's more like of a, like a, Whiplash, right? When I see it, I'm like, what? You know? And then, like, we can, and then we have that conversation, but at least for me, like, I kind of, like, wish, I'm like, dude, just tell me, you know? Like, we, and then, at least for me, like, then I can plan for it, right? Right. You know, that, that's kind of my thing, because then, like, you, especially if it's, like, this insane hundred, five-hour, hundred-mile, you know, death march, you're like, oh boy, you know, you have to account for the recovery needed from something like that. Yeah, well, especially when it's, like, three days from a race. Otherwise, I think you're different than me in that respect where you want to know ahead of time and I see it and I'm like, okay, we're just going to adjust down the line and then if that happens often enough, I'm like, all right, we need to have a chat about your goals and if what your approach is right now is actually helping you achieve those goals. So I think that's You know, you and I have different coaching styles in that respect. Gitaminas, what are your thoughts here? Yeah, I'll use myself as an example here. And I have quite some experience with junk miles where the fatigue was not worth it. And that's a pretty relevant example to my current coaching experience because that's a mistake, big mistake I made. a while ago and tried to make sure others turned to the same mistake. So when I got coached back in 2021, I think I was super excited. I really wanted to impress him with my work ethics and I had absolutely perfect compliance. You know, I did every workout we planned. Never, never, I might have skipped like one workout a year. But I was so cooked by the end of the season, both physically and mentally, I think I took probably a month off just, and even after a month, I didn't really want to look at the bike. So now that I see someone's Training Peaks calendar just all green, perfect compliance, I'm immediately suspicious. Like, either this person's life is incredibly predictable and stable, They are lying either to themselves or to me. I think, yeah, that's a pretty good example of chunk miles. Well, I know a lot of people who love the greens so much that they will adjust the planned volume to get out of the yellow or red. So, you know, if somebody's like, all right, you planned five, I did two and a half, and even though you said two to five, I don't want to see that red. I do this for my clients because I usually do the structure workout, right? And like maybe the work is 90 minutes to an hour. But in the title, I always say plus long, easy for as much as you have time for. Right? So maybe today it's only two hours, maybe tomorrow it's four, right? And so like if the plan workout is two and then they ride four and those four hours is definitely like super chill, I'm like, all right, I'll just switch it to four to give you the green. I've never had a client like message me and say like, hey, like, can you change? Oh, I've seen that. Or they just change it themselves. I do it for them, right? And I don't know if they appreciate it. Or did they even notice? But I do it for them. Well, I think that this also highlights another difference in our approaches, both of which work just as well, which is that I want to see what I planned versus what actually got done. And in the future, I will adjust expectations. I will adjust the volume that I plan based on what actually got done with their feedback. And I just want to see what I thought was going to happen and what somebody else actually did. Because oftentimes, those two are wildly different things. A lot of the time, they're right in line. But sometimes, I mean, whew, boy, we are just ships passing in the light sometimes. So I think that actually, Gediminis, what you were really getting at, though, is doing the plan to the point where you are not providing any feedback to it, where you think that the plan is hyper-optimized. and nothing that happens in life is going to keep you from that plan. I remember I once, I've probably told this story in the podcast before, I talked myself out of a client once because he was basically overtrained and he was like, man, I do every workout to a T, I have perfect execution, I've never missed one and his job's like super high stress and I was like, you know what, you're doing, I would say half of the workout that you should be doing. The other half is that you should be providing feedback. You should be auto-regulating better. I wouldn't want you hitting all of your workouts. I don't think that's good for you, especially with the working super high work hours, super high stress. I was like, you're robbing yourself of the recovery that you need. And so we need to adjust that in training. And so I would have you training a lot less than you train now. and I think we would see better results. And he was like, yeah, no, it's not what I want to hear. Next. Yeah, I think I just had a lot of expectations that if I, you know, if the plan was good and if I just stick to it, I'll see massive gains. You know, I was much younger. I was a bit naive and I didn't really, well, I didn't talk. about these expectations to my coach at all. I just, you know, quietly had these expectations. And, yeah, that's very important, I think, just talking about these expectations with your coach because, you know, your coach, ideally, has some experience. They have seen a lot of seasons unfold and, you know, they can't tell you what will happen in the future, but they can. provides some range of likely outcomes. So at least tell if you have very unrealistic goals. I definitely should have had that conversation by the same time. It's like sort of shredding your scat kind of thing where if you had unrealistic expectations but don't share them. Nobody can kill those expectations, but as soon as you share them and they say, no, that's not going to happen, you just kind of lose motivation or faith of what's the point if I can't get to this. So over a year, over that year of training that you had, would you say that the quantity of junk miles that you had actually increased relative to the total miles that you had? 

So like early in the year, there's no junk miles. There's a fatigue mounts and you're like, man, I don't want to get on the bike. It's becoming more and more junk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I think, yeah, I remember and just the mood itself changing a lot. Like I was just getting increasingly more frustrated. Again, I get that frustration to myself because I wanted to show my perfect work ethic to my coach, but I wasn't happy. Alright, so I want to keep going, but we've got to end it here because I've got to catch a plane soon. So, any kind of final wrap-up thoughts? Besides, you know, there's a lot of ways to think about drunk miles. It always depends. Well, I couldn't have said it better myself. Alright. Let's wrap this up. Thanks, everybody, for listening. If you would like to reach out for coaching, empiricalcycling at gmail.com or head over to the website at empiricalcycling.com. If you want to support the show, empiricalcycling.com slash donate. If you want to ask questions in the weekend AMAs or for future podcasts, whenever I put those up, follow me on Instagram. at Empirical Cycling. And if you want to support the podcast, you can always share it. That's great. And if you want to rate us five stars, it goes a long way. Thanks so much for blowing reviews, help, and sharing it with a friend is always the best. So I guess with that, we will see you all, I guess, when I'm back from Redlands. Peace.