Xavier Grenier-Talavéra is a young emergent Canadian athlete. Actually ranking 61st after his first season the WTS, also won his first PAN AM race and placed 9th at the last U23 World Championship in Cozumel this year.
You can follow Xavier Grenier-Talavera Triathlete on his Facebook page.
Here’s a quick view of a training day in this time of the year.
In the morning, we start with a solid swim, usually at 6am on Tuesday-Thursday: Autumn is for early starts, even though that doesn’t always excite me… We usually either do a technical session, or a harder day like this one, in order to start building up the swim form:
Warm-up:
4×100 (1 Fr/1 pull/1 pull+paddles/1 pull+paddles+band)
200 build kick (2 beat/4/6/8, build by 50)
100 EZ
Main set:
4×400
1st one tempo (a bit slower than 1500m race pace) D:6.00
2nd one Race Pace 1500m with Paddles D:6.00
3rd as 2×200, 1 at 1500m Race Pace and 1 at 800m Race Pace, R:30 seconds between each
4th as 4×100, progressive from 800m Race Pace to 400m Race Pace, R:20 seconds between each
4×200 with last 50/100/150/200 fast drafting, switch every 50
Cool-Down:
300 EZ choice
After coming back home (and a well-deserved nap), it’s time for a small bike session:
90 minutes, with a small set
2x
10 minutes at 85% (of FTP) and 85 RPM, with 6s standing at 140% every 4 minutes, with full recovery between efforts
The rest of the ride is completed in Z1-2, which means between 60 to 70% of your FTP for the 20 minute bike test.
Following or preceding the bike set, a 25-35 minute of running is done in what we call Zone 1-2, which is some running done at an effort slightly above easy speed: for me, I aim in between 3:59 and 4:15 minutes per kilometer pace.
Finally, I end the day with a short 30-minute strength program session, which I usually complete at home!
This resembles a typical day in the autumn months, where we progressively build intensity and volume to come back gradually into some kind of shape. We also do a lot of technical sessions, in order to work on that basic technique, that can help one improve much more over the duration of the season, and strength work, which will lay the foundations for the high-intensity work that will be done further down the road. In January, when we should have achieved a decent fitness, we’ll then be leaving to Ecuador for an altitude camp, and the world tour begins!