Today I went on an adventure and took the train from Guildford to Crystal Palace, where the Brazilian Olympic Team is doing a camp before going into the Olympic Village.
It was a great day since I got to have lunch with Fabiola Molina and Coach Michael Walker. After lunch we also had practice with Fabiola. It has been almost two weeks since I last saw them back in Jacksonville, and it was nice spending this quality time with both of them.
Fabiola is looking good in the water and she is getting ready and very excited to represent her country in her third Olympics. We are all very happy for her. She is a great swimmer but even a better person. A true professional swimmer with true passion for the sport of swimming. It has been a privilege to coach her and learn from her and her husband Diogo Yabe these past season. Now I get to watch her swim at the Olympics ;-)!!!!!
I also spend some quality time with Coach Michael over a huge Caffe Mocha and a good conversation (yes a took short naps while he was talking to me but he is used to it ;-). Probably was more of a monologe by Coach Michael, hahaha….
What I can say is that Coach Michael really is “Living the Dream”. Over the past two weeks he has spent the first week with the USA Olympic Team in Tennessee assisting Bob Bowman that has been in charge of Charlie Houchin and Ariana Kukors, plus being able to watch some great practices and have some great conversations with the best swimmers and coaches in the USA. Now he gets to spend his time helping Fabiola to get ready for the Games here in London and at the same time he gets to watch the Brazilian team train. Two weeks of high level swimming and great learning experiences. No better way to learn.
I was very impressed with the set up that the Brazilian Team has here at Crystal Palace. The pool is I believe over 50 years old but it is very impressive and really brought me back to the years I used to swim back in Spain. Great memories. Check out the Bus that the Travel around with, impressive!
Practices went well, I got to see my friends and they seemed very happy, I got to take the train and spend a couple of hours really thinking about how lucky I am to be doing what I do, had a great pizza and wings from Pizza Hut for dinner, watched over the net the Bolles Age Group Team swim very well at FLAGS (saw harley swim very well), and now I get to write this blog and hopefully I will take a good nap after. What a great day and I guess i can also say that “I’m Living The Dream Baby!”
Tomorrow morning we will be going to visit the Olympic Village so hopefully I will get some good pictures.
Great day today but better day tomorrow. BELIEVE!!!
