May
23
An Olympic medal, the dream of every athlete! It doesn’t matter what sport the athlete won the medal. If you ask those athletes, it’s the moment they all remember as it was yesterday. The moment they took their place on the medal stand and eventually being awarded for their efforts when the winner’s flags are raised will forever be one of their most valuable memory.
The link to this special moment created by the medal around their neck is what makes most of those athletes put their medal away in deposit box or another safe place and only take it out on special occasions. It’s not the actual value of the gold, silver or bronze medal that drives this special behavior but the previously explained emotional value associated with the medal.
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Apr
30
On Saturday April 24, I competed at the traditional Meeting de Printemps in Lancy. This is my club team’s home meet and always a lot of fun. The format of the meet is starts with a prelim session of 100′s in each stroke and a 200m IM final. Although at this time I’m not awfully training a lot there’s no way I could miss out on swimming in front of the home crowd.
I didn’t expect anything from this meet other than having a good time with my team. Well, this of course isn’t the full truth as you never compete just for the fun (at least I don’t). It always makes me furious when one of the other guys in my heat puts in a higher gear and overtakes me.
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Jan
9
It’s again time to take a quick look back at the last year and bring up some statistics about 2009. In short, you’ll know what happened last year and what I look forward to in 2010. There are some things I can’t just share yet but you’ll have a pretty good idea what my plans for this year will look like.
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Jan
4
This completes my daily bits from Tenerife. I’m sitting at the airport Tenerife North while I start writing this last entry. Today wasn’t our lucky day. Our flight got delayed by about an hour and a half and it looks like back home the ground personnel is on strike and there’s about a two our wait at the baggage reclaim.
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Jan
4
“Last” day in Tenerife … it was a busy one! Not only did we have two pool and one gym session on the program but I also planned to meet up with Cassandra and her family. Today also marked the day where I didn’t have to do an additional set or some additional stroke work at the end of workout after almost two weeks. It almost felt weird finishing up with the team and just doing the regular workout.
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Jan
3
Another day off as the facility was closed for a full day on January 1st, 2010. And of course again Happy New Year! We didn’t have any plans at all for this day off. Everyone was happy to sleep in and I wanted to get some work for school done.
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Jan
1
Although this is the entry for December 31st, as I’m sitting here on the coach writing it’s already 2010, so Happy New Year! May the lanes be plenty and all the water good and fast!
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Dec
30
Wednesday’s are Spa days. But first we had to go through 2 pool and one gym session. The weather is still nice but there’s a pretty chilly breeze coming in from the Atlantic Ocean. Morning workout wasn’t that hard but we did some “warm-up” for the main set of fast 50′s in the afternoon. I’m also starting to think about changing my main stroke to something other than fly … it might just be me but there are way too many fly sets in practice lately.
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Dec
29
Quite a lazy day. We started our daily routine in the morning but with the rumors confirmed we would not have to go back to the pool in the afternoon today. After a rough day yesterday this morning was mainly just swimming. And I finally got to have my massage as well after the morning workout.
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Dec
28
On Saturday Dec 19th I competed at the Championnat Romand d’hiver in Lausanne. I substituted my Saturday morning workout with this meet by entering more events than I normally would at Regionals. My team mates were on a short 3 day break as we were leaving on Sunday morning for our Christmas/New Year training camp in Tenerife.
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Nicolas is a Computer Science student living and studying in Geneva blogging about swimming, finswimming and other things in life. 
