One of my first job interviews as a chemical engineering student was with Frito-Lay. It was a dream role at the time: process engineer, working in one of their plants making potato chips. I made it to the interview. They asked me one question.

Just one.

They described a dryer—a kind of conveyor belt system—used to remove moisture from a potato slice. The chip starts out with a high water content, maybe 88%, and you want it to come out crispy, around 30% moisture. I don't remember the exact numbers. The question was:

What temperature should the dryer be set to in order to do this efficiently?

I froze. I overanalyzed. I thought about energy balances, airflow equations, heat transfer coefficients. I got it wrong.

The correct answer?

212°F. Or 100°C. The boiling point of water. That’s it.

You’re just evaporating water. Nothing more. But I missed it because I made the problem harder than it was. The interviewer told me they were looking for people who would’ve recognized that right away—people who understood the fundamentals and didn’t overcomplicate things.

That lesson stuck with me.

Now, whenever I feel like I’m overthinking something—whether it’s in life or training—I try to ask: What’s the simple answer here?

It shows up all the time in running. I’ll catch myself looking for the “perfect” new training plan or the “smartest” workout hack. But at the end of the day, the answer is usually this for me:

Run more. Be consistent. Keep showing up. Build mileage. Then worry about the fancy stuff.

Start with the basics. They’re usually right.