We caught up with Brazier at the New Balance Indoor Grand Priz press event totday.
Donavan Brazier is slowly adapting to life as a member of the Nike Oregon Project
Brazier ran his first race as a member of the Nike Oregon Project last weekend at Texas A&M, clocking 1:15.46 for 600, but tomorrow's race, against Murphy and World Indoor bronze medalist Saul Ordonez of Spain, will be a much bigger test. It's taken a long time for Brazier to reach this point, and he still has a long way to go in a season that he hopes will stretch until the World Championship final on October 1.
Most of the world last saw Brazier being disqualified in his semi at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham last March. Shortly after that, he felt something in his Achilles, and rather than race and risk aggravating it during an off year, he decided to shut his season down. He was also in the process of changing training groups, from his college coach Alleyne Francique to NOP.
Brazier was still cross training in the fall, and did not return to normal training until the new year, running on the track for the first time during the first week of January. His race last week at Texas A&M was his first time wearing spikes since last season. As a result, he says he's more focused on simply competing tomorrow rather than aiming for a specific time.
As for his transition in training, Brazier says that he's following a "10% plan" -- keeping most of what he had in place under Francique, but trying to sub out the 10% that he didn't need with stuff that he does. One key addition: Brazier has lengthened his warmups before track sessions, which he has found to be an easy -- and important -- way to add mileage.
"At A&M, I was probably doing a half-mile warmup, which is silly, especially if you're doing speed work and really getting after it, which is what we did most days," said Brazier, who added that he now runs 1.5 miles before sessions and hopes to get up to the 2-3 miles that his NOP teammates do. Brazier also says he has recorded at least one PR with NOP: longest run ever (8.1 miles, up from 7.6).
Brazier also jogs between reps during practice, which was an entirely new concept for him.
"I never realized that people actually jogged during their recovery, but apparently that's a thing."
Brazier said he doesn't run every session with Murphy (Pete Julian handles Brazier's training, while Alberto Salazar is Murphy's lead coach), but they do speed sessions together, and when guys like Murphy and Craig Engels run longer reps, Brazier might hop in for a portion of each rep.