In 1984, Plesník determined the minimum total distance for given order and diameter and characterized the extremal graphs and digraphs. We prove the analog for given order and radius, when the order is sufficiently large compared to the radius. This confirms asymptotically a conjecture of Chen et al. We show the connection between minimizing the total distance and maximizing the size under the same conditions. We also prove some asymptotically optimal bounds for the maximum total distance.