How many meets do you swim a year/season ?

In 2010 I went to 9 meets: 3 SCY, 2 LCM, 4 SCM. Two of the meets were USA-S meets. There were 4 taper meets in the mix, two in SCY, one each in SCM and LCM. There was also one OW race in there. My sweet spot is probably about 8 pool meets per year and 2 OW races. This works out to roughly one meet or race per month, taking January and September off. I need meets/races to keep me motivated, but of course need to balance family with that. One-day races/meets that are drivable and don't require an overnight stay are great in that respect. We have several of those around here. For those who do more than 6/year, how do you train through the different training cycles, taper, meet, recover? I like having 3-4 taper meets a year, spaced 3-4 months apart. That gives 2-3 months of training followed by a 3-week taper. When I was young and stupid, I was definitely of the school of thought of one, maybe two taper meets per year. But now I find I need more frequent tapers to ensure I don't over-train. I don't usually rest much for in-season meets, but I find they are a useful gauge of accumulated training fatigue.

In 2010 I went to 9 meets: 3 SCY, 2 LCM, 4 SCM. Two of the meets were USA-S meets. There were 4 taper meets in the mix, two in SCY, one each in SCM and LCM. There was also one OW race in there. My sweet spot is probably about 8 pool meets per year and 2 OW races. This works out to roughly one meet or race per month, taking January and September off. I need meets/races to keep me motivated, but of course need to balance family with that. One-day races/meets that are drivable and don't require an overnight stay are great in that respect. We have several of those around here. For those who do more than 6/year, how do you train through the different training cycles, taper, meet, recover? I like having 3-4 taper meets a year, spaced 3-4 months apart. That gives 2-3 months of training followed by a 3-week taper. When I was young and stupid, I was definitely of the school of thought of one, maybe two taper meets per year. But now I find I need more frequent tapers to ensure I don't over-train. I don't usually rest much for in-season meets, but I find they are a useful gauge of accumulated training fatigue.