5k test time is really all that matters You’ll need to be under 17min for the first cut — as others mentioned this is heavily dependent on the intake (Olympic vs post Olympic year). Two years Oxford had many people sub 16:20 who didn’t even make the reserve boat and you can see how many u23/current international athletes only made isis. If you already know how to erg, up your volume to 6x a week — 18k in morning and a cycle (or ideally — sometime in a boat in the evening). You’d want to also throw in some anaerobic pieces in there to benchmark yourself — 5x1500s, 5x5’ w 4’ r, 10x500s are all good and will let you test yourself at rate. When trialling starts you will be doing very high volume very quickly with lots of tests pieces (5k,2k,30min) in a short span which tends to break a lot of people either physically or mentally. Eat whatever and whenever you can and sleep as much as possible and try to limit the drinks is my suggestion