Excessive RBC vs blood doping?

[Pac Man]

What's the difference between having excessive red blood cells and blood doping? Seems like the same concept to me.
As I recall excessive RBC causes the viscosity of your blood to increase and AAS contribute to this, so donating blood is beneficial for the most part.
Lets say you have a upcoming run or competition of some sort, would it be best to run with high RBC count or to donate a few weeks prior?

[Lemonada8]

depends on what the competition is... if its a endurance thing then keep the rbc's... if not endurance then its personal preference

[T_Own]

yeah, the rbc is what carries the oxygen, so more is better, although it does strain your heart more to be pushing around more viscous blood.

blood doping is when you take out say 1 pint a month before your event, and let your body make the pint again in that time, so you're back to normal, then a couple days prior to the event you inject the pint back into you, so now you have more blood than normal (for the rbc) so along the same lines but slightly different

[Lemonada8]

there was a video about blood doping/ excessive rbcs and such... ill try to find it...