I was interested in Terry O'Neill's replies to correspondents about training, the muscular demands of the Indoor Rower and so on. I've also written to you before about the slight worry I have regarding the balance between my quite heavy blood pressure medication and my rowing. (One of my drugs slows my heart rate, and that makes me cautious about pushing myself too hard.)In the end, my old friend Clifford North, another of your correspondents, put me right when he suggested to me that if I can do long rows at sub 2:15 for 500m, then maybe I should settle for that. At 68 it's not bad by comparison with the rest of the population at large. It does mean, though, that I won't turn up to the British IRC any more - too slow over 2,000m to be respectable I fear.The following thoughts, though, come to mind.1. Turning in 10,000 metres in 45 minutes day after day week after week will never make me faster than about 8:30 for 2,000m. For that, the need is for speed training - lots of interval work, with flat out 500m and slower recovery in between. I know a lot of older people do the intense high-speed stuff, but I'm unsure about its suitability for anyone with any sort of cardiovascular history.2. For real short and medium distance performance in any athletic sport, quality of training is more important than quantity. Twenty minutes of really intense intervals is better than an hour's steady work. The middle distance runners discovered this principle years ago and it also worked for me when I was a veteran racing cyclist. The club used to go off on long Sunday rides. That to me was a waste of valuable time with the family. Instead I'd do 25 miles in less than one hour fifteen over a hilly course, three times a week. Cycling on the road is natural interval training because of the changing demands of the contours and traffic conditions.3. Training for a good time over 2,000m on the rower isn't ideal for losing weight. For that you need long steady work. You pays your money and you takes your choice. At the moment, for me, with my health history and a weight problem, it's the long rows.4. As a general rule, in any sort of athletic training, even the long distance stuff, if you can hold a sensible conversation while you're doing it, you're not working hard enough. Check how many people in your gym are gabbing to one another on the rowers and the treadmills. That's fine so long as they know that what they're doing is having a night out. They can't call it 'training'.5.Technique matters. It really does. In your gym, I guess the number of people who are rowing badly far exceeds the number using a safe and efficient technique. You see everything - underhand grips, rapid short snatched strokes, 'humping' over the knees, lying too far back - the lot. There you are doing it properly, so why don't they learn by looking, or even ask? That's a real mystery to me. There's even a diagram on the machine in some places, and lots of help on the website. They're just not interested are they? Worse still, the gym staff aren't bothered either.