Another year came to a close and as the last two years, it’s time to share some statistics about 2010. You’ll notice that I wasn’t a poster child for training in 2010 and as I announced in last year’s post, my focus was on graduating, which I’m happy to say I did.

To sum 2010 up, I swam a “grand” total of 339.5km in only 79 swimming sessions and competed in only 2 meets which adds up to about 113 hours in the water. The two meets I decided to swim in 2010 were my club’s, Lancy Natation, annual home meet and Masters Nationals to make me “feel better about myself”.

Although I decided to try to make more finswimming practices in 2010 after some good results in 2009, it just didn’t fit in the plan neither. But even without being in race shape I did also compete in two finswimming meets in 2010. A one race showing at my finswimming club’s, Dauphins Genève, annual home meet and one day at Nationals.

Really nothing to be proud of myself but the love for the water and the excitement of competing got the better of me in those cases. But more importantly, I still like to workout and have fun doing it.

Some of you might have heard that I’m starting to spend more time on deck than in the pool. Making a living in the sport of swimming is a dream come true! And working with so many different athletes is making every day a challenge and a gift. Although I might not be in Switzerland or in the pool that often myself, I keep my registration with my swim and finswimming club. I also consider to join U.S. Masters Swimming so I’ll be able to compete with some of the Fighting Manatees, the local Masters swim team in Islamorada.

We’ll see how all that goes…I still think I got competitive juices but I also understand what it takes to compete at the high level. There’s a lot of water to pass under the bridge but the one thing I’m doing is enjoying it and you should never say never.

Also recently, I started writing columns for the Race Club again which you might find interesting and you can find in the column series or you can also access the full archives of 2010.

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.

To sum 2009 up, I swam a grand total of 868.2km in 179 swimming sessions and 7 meets which sums up to 293 hours in the water. Just a last year I had a little “blow out” in the summer but this time for a pleasant reason. I was coaching the Florida Keys Swim Club and conducting camps with the Race Club.

This was the most fun I had in a long time and I couldn’t have enjoyed being on the deck every day and working with those kids more. Being around my friend Mark Hill for a few weeks before he left for Michigan was a great learning experience. And overall working with the little kids in the Learn to Swim program, the regular (competitive) groups of the FKSC, the Masters of the Fighting Manatees and even the Coral Shores High School team by the end of my stay was an invaluable experience.

I worked with athletes of all levels of abilities in the past but never was I “in charge” of overseeing and taking responsibility the overall program and the end result. Most things came rather easy to me, some other were more challenging. In the end, I think it all comes down to your passion and love for the sport that will define failure or success.

As you might already can guess there might be some plans in the near future that will me bring back to the Keys. But this is one of the things I just can’t tell you more about yet. For right know the most important thing is to graduate and get my CS degree.

One last thing to finish up. Something I would love to do better in 2010 is to interact with you (my visitors). Please feel free to use the comment feature … it’s great to hear your thoughts and share some of your experiences. Also don’t hesitate to contact me as did Cassandra while I was in Tenerife.

First, I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a happy, safe, and prosperous new year. 2009 looks like it’s going to be a heckuva year. Otherwise, let’s take a quick look back at 2008 and bring up some statistics.

Last year I swam a grand total of 955km in 223 training sessions and 14 meets which sums up to 319 hours in the water. Considering that I was out of the pool for about four months during the summer while serving for the Swiss Armed Forces, 2008 was quite a good year from the training aspect. On the competitive side, it didn’t quite go as well as I was hoping during those 14 meets but hopefully this is going to change in 2009.

Since my return to Geneva last summer, I’ve been working with a new coach and a new team at Lancy. Trainings have gone great ever since, but I still need some more time to adapt to the change of training and some changes in my strokes.