For the past several years, I’ve relied upon the wisdom of my friend and running Coach – especially when the going gets tough. I may not always like what he has to say, but he has never steered me wrong. With decades of experience, including much of his own trial and error, he has accumulated a wealth of personal and professional wisdom.

Today I picked up my phone to ask him a question even though I was pretty sure I knew what his answer was going to be.

Not surprisingly, I was correct.

The point tonight is a relatively simple one:

Stop overthinking. Just DO…or, in my case, DON’T.

Many of the decisions we make as runners, are things that we drastically overthink while simultaneously underacting upon.

Should I do X or Y? A or B? This or that?

In many cases, the best answer is to simply DO rather than worry about whatever the best answer might be.

For example, let’s say you’re questioning yourself regarding tweaks you feel you need to make to your regular training schedule.

“Instead of doing my long run on Saturday, which I can’t do because of XYZ life thing, do you think it would be ok if I did it on Sunday instead?”

Next thing you know, you’re blowing up your friend/Coach’s phone with a long laundry list of pros/cons between moving the run to Sunday versus getting up at WTF o’Clock on Saturday to get your run done before whatever “life thing” needs your attention.

The honest truth? 99% of the time, it doesn’t even matter. Either option is fine.

Whichever one works better for you, do that.

Instead, we waste our valuable time and energy overthinking the situation. We convince ourselves that maybe we really don’t know what to do after all, and then worry that whatever choice we make is going to be the wrong one.

Stop overthinking. Just do.

You know more than you give yourself credit for, I can promise you that.

Listen to your body. Trust your gut. Stop overthinking. Just DO… or, in my case, DON’T.

I’m not gonna lie, sometimes it’s nice to have someone tell you that you’re overthinking things and you just need to do it. And, in my case, it’s comforting to know that I can rely on Shep to back my decisions, hold me accountable for my actions, as well as, educate me on how to train smarter, rather than harder. In fact, I’ve trained with him for so long that I can already hear his voice inside my head, answering my questions before I even ask them – the text message today was simply a confirmation.

#BeyondTheBoylstonLine