The Recovery Approach

From Running Times online...

The Recovery Approach
Matt Dixon has helped turn over-trained athletes back into competitive machines, Ryan Hall among them. Here's how.
By Michelle Hamilton
As featured in the Web Only issue of Running Times Magazine

Every athlete knows recovery is essential, but Ryan Hall seems to be living it. At the Boston and Chicago marathons in 2011, as well as the Jan. 14 U.S. Olympic trials marathon, where he placed second, Hall toed the line fit and fresh. His recovered state comes courtesy of strategic changes Hall has made to his training over the last year since becoming self-coached - strategies he gathered from an unexpected source: professional triathlon coach Matt Dixon.

Why would an elite runner with no interest in triathlon or even cross-training turn to a triathlon coach? Reputation. Dixon, a 37-year-old Brit who also coaches recreational runners and triathletes, is known in multisport circles as "the recovery coach." Over the last four years, he has helped revive a number of burnt-out athletes, putting them back on the path to peak performance through a program of "massive recovery." Professional triathlete Chris Lieto - who told his friend Ryan Hall about Dixon - is a good example of his handiwork. Overtrained and underperforming, Dixon slashed Lieto's volume by 30 percent, added easier workouts and had him eat more. A year later, Lieto placed second at the 2009 Ironman World Championships (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run).

Pro triathlete and former collegiate distance runner Linsey Corbin has a similar story. Dixon reduced her volume from 35 hours a week to 25, then filled those 10 hours with massage, functional strength and more sleep. Six weeks later, she clocked a personal best in the Ironman.

"Matt was working with athletes with a substantially higher workload than I, and I wanted to learn how I could become a smarter, more recovered runner," says Hall, on why he reached out to Dixon shortly after leaving the Mammoth Track Club to pursue a self-coached, faith-based approach to training.

Since he started working with Dixon, Hall has run three marathons: Boston (fourth, 2:04:58), Chicago (fifth, 2:08:04) and the Olympic trials (second, 2:09:30).
Dixon helped Hall see anew the benefits of recovery, encouraging him to incorporate more rest into his training and to eat more post-run to aid recovery.

In his buildup to Boston, Chicago and the trials race in Houston, Hall - who is now only occasionally in touch with Dixon - took one full day off per week, dropped his mileage to 100 (down from 120, which was his usual during previous marathon buildups), recovered fully between hard sessions, and says he probably ate more than any other elite runner after workouts. Although Hall is no longer officially coached by Dixon, he will continue to follow the recovery methods he learned under him as he prepares for the London Olympics.

"Matt," Hall says, "is a master of recovery."

Read on here.