Phil Perkins: Could you give me a quick breakdown on some of the jargon. What is VO2; how does 6:40 relate to fitness levels; is there a training guide available and what sort of times do people achieve for 2,000m?Terry O'Neill: VO2 max is V for volume, O2 for oxygen and max for maximum. What it actually means is the amount of oxygen that you can extract from the air and get into the blood stream in one minute. This figure is very important for endurance athletes and one of the areas we try to improve through training. Top endurance athletes will have a VO2 max of 6-7 litres for men and around 5 litres for women.There is a training guide which you can download free of charge from the web site or you can buy a hard copy for 10 pounds. In the back is a glossary that explains the jargon.6.40 for 2,000 metres is a pretty respectable time and would indicate a good fitness level, although how good would depend on such variables as age, weight and height. To check for yourself you could go to the printed rankings (on-line at http://www.therowingcompany.com/v4/ranking.htm), which are organised by age and weight categories, and compare yourself. Also you can enter your time on the on-line world ranking (http://166.82.35.96/sranking/home.asp) from which all British entries entered by March 2nd will be listed in the printed UK and Ireland rankings.Gareth Callan: I'm a fairly fit indoor rower, 30 years old, 15 stone, 2000m PB 6:25.5. I am a blood donor and I want to continue to donate blood at the recommended frequency - once every three months or so. Does this present any risk to my health or to my performance? Does a temporary loss in red cells reduce my capacity to get oxygen to and carbon dioxide/lactate from my muscles? When moving into more intense training phases, should blood donation be avoided?Terry O'Neill: For a normal healthy person donating blood is not a problem and your normal blood volume would be restored, certainly by the next day; red cell volume, however, could be down for around ten days. So avoid doing any flat out tests until your red cell count is back to normal. The only other thing you need to watch is to make sure that the actual point where they take the blood from has healed as if you start rowing even at a low intensity you could cause the exit point to start bleeding again.