She trained with Vicki Keith, a record-holding swimmer who was the first person to swim across all five Great Lakes, and the only person to have completed the 104-kilometre double crossing of Lake Ontario.
She was strong, fast, a real good competitor, said fellow Canadian marathon swimmer Kim Lumsdon, who, along with Nicholas, Winnipeg-born Vicki Keith and Etobicokes Loreen Passfield, dominated distance swimming in the 1970s and 1980s.