Michael Phelps, Olympic swimmer and the golden boy of the summer games, is well on his way to making history by competing for a whopping ten gold medals in London this year. If he succeeds, he’ll be decorated with the most gold medals in the history of Olympians.

Phelps took home six medals in 2004 and eight in 2008; since then, he’s seen a minor amount of drama threaten to tarnish his career after a story broke about his alleged marijuana use. But the Subway spokesman has persevered, training harder than ever at the age of 27, which is considered to be at the high end of the spectrum for swimmers.

“I think the decision of throwing in the towel and stopping after 2008 was something that went through my head a lot,” said Phelps. “Through 2009 and 2010 I was like ‘what am I doing, why am I doing this?’ I still had more goals I wanted to achieve, but I didn’t know if I wanted to put myself through another four years.”

Whatever happens, Phelps is sure to make it count; after the 2012 Olympics, he’s retiring. He’s been chronicling his path to London on Twitter, tweeting photos of his training sessions.