From Burnout to Breakthrough: Drew Ruana’s Analytical Approach to Climbing Artwork

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Lattice Training Podcast

From Burnout to Breakthrough: Drew Ruana’s Analytical Approach to Climbing

March 22, 2025 • Lattice Training • Season 10 • Episode 7

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In this episode of the Lattice Training Podcast, Ollie Torr sits down with Drew Ruana, one of the strongest and most analytical climbers in the game today. Drew shares an unfiltered look into his training philosophy, his unique approach to projecting, and how he’s balancing high-level climbing with a degree in computer science.

From discussing his "Level 4 Beta" system of optimising climbing efficiency to deep-diving into the mental aspects of performance, burnout, and progression, this conversation explores what it takes to push climbing limits—both physically and mentally.

Other topics covered:

The role of structured vs. intuitive training
How weightlifting and non-climbing strength work fuels his performance
The mental side of climbing, burnout, and staying psyched long-term
Why goal-setting and patience are the most underrated tools in high-performance climbing
His long-term aspirations, including a book on climbing performance

Drew is known for sending some of the hardest boulders in the world, but in this conversation, we get a deeper look at the mindset and method behind his success.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts!

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

Ollie Torr (00:00)
So welcome to the podcast, Drew. Thanks so much for joining me. It's been a long time coming, but a pleasure to have you on.

Drew (00:05)
Thanks for having me on. Excited to be here.

Ollie Torr (00:07)
So you've obviously just been on a trip recently that was cut a little bit short, but how was the trip to Red Rocks before that?

Drew (00:14)
It

was fun. I haven't been on a trip in a really long time, so I kind of didn't really know what to expect. Like, it's a lot different when, like, I'm constantly, like, climbing outside or going on a trip, like, kind of understanding where I'm at, basically. It's one thing to feel, like, super fit and trained in the gym, but another thing if you're not really climbing outside. So I had, like, I haven't been to Red Rocks for four or five years.

or so at this point. And yes, I'm a lot different of a climber like now compared to then. So I kind of had like higher expectations for going to the trip. And then pretty quickly it was apparent that it was like, yeah, I'm not really in great outdoor shape right now.

Ollie Torr (00:52)
That's already come up with so many questions for me in terms of those expectations and stuff. to kind of give people the background, you've just done your finals exams, is that right, in the end of last year?

Drew (01:02)
Yeah, so I finished a couple pretty not that fun classes. I finished up school in May this year. So last couple classes I'm in right now. But coming right off of a hard study cycle, too, didn't really line everything up in my favor for that trip. But it's fine. That's how it goes.

Ollie Torr (01:21)
So you're obviously someone who prides themselves on being a student as well and doing things outside of climbing, but a passionate climber as well. In that study period, what does that look like for you? Are you just standard student cramming, grafting in the library all night or in your room all night? Or are you still trying to go, I'm an athlete, I need to maintain a certain amount of time at the gym. How does it work for you?

Drew (01:43)
I'm not really a big library person. I have a pretty nice setup in my house, so I just kind of stay there basically. But I don't know. There's definitely been a couple times where...

At the classes just get hard enough for me. like, it's not worth it to go through a full training cycle right now or something. I'll just go climb for 45 minutes, get the blood flowing, go back and get back to work, basically. I don't know. I used to try and force the issue more, and now it's fine. Maybe I'll feel bad for a couple days or something, but I'll snap back pretty quick.

Ollie Torr (02:15)
Yeah, So talk me through like sort of your standard week at the moment in terms of like the next, I guess until May, you're going to be pretty busy with studying. You told me last time we spoke that you've been just weightlifting loads and you've got really back into the gym. Like what does that look like for you now in terms of study time versus weightlifting and so on?

Drew (02:36)
I think with the way I climb specifically, I've noticed over time that, like the more time I spend conditioning in the gym, like whether it's weightlifting or calisthenics or anything, like I climb way better. I just, I think it's just, it has to be like the way I climb. I can be like wrecked from a session the day before and I don't know. It's like, everything's like connected better.

So that was like pretty nice to know. At least like if I am not as psyched on climbing or something, I can like tone it back a little bit and focus more on the training side of things. And so recently that's been, yeah, kind of mostly everything like just focusing on school and polishing up like a lot of other skill sets that might be like related to climbing or would help climbing, but aren't exactly just climbing. I got pretty psyched on board climbing recently, so I feel like it's time to just lean into that for a bit.

Ollie Torr (03:24)
What boards are you on at the moment?

Drew (03:26)
I like the tension board the most, TV2. So I'll climb on that and then climb on my home wall.

Ollie Torr (03:31)
So I have to ask, and this is totally biased for me personally, what movements are you doing in the gym and what are you actually lifting? Give me some numbers if you don't mind saying some. I'm so fascinated by, because your style stands out to me and I want to compare that to the people I know of a different style of main head.

Drew (03:40)
Are you on numbers?

So full disclaimer, I'm probably, this is probably gonna make people laugh. I'm literally like not even lifting anymore to get better at climbing. Like I'm straight up only lifting to get better at lifting because I really enjoy doing it and it's fun and currently at this moment in my life right now it's just more fun. Like I don't know. I never really have been through burnout before and.

kind of like, well, I don't want to lose my love of climbing. I do love climbing, so let's just take a step back. But then even if I'm more psyched on lifting, then my climbing side comes back and I feel better. So it's kind of a win-win.

Ollie Torr (04:22)
I think what is a massive thing that people overlook is mental fatigue, burnout and stuff. Make the movement simple but the effort still just as hard. like even just a board compared to an outdoor session or a gym is 2D. And then like lifting a weight. Like you can always just grind out a bicep curl.

even when you're feeling like mentally burnt out, because you're not coordinating, you didn't have to think about foot slip. I, 100%, even so for me programming female athletes around their cycle when they're not feeling as coordinated, it's really important just to go for those basic movements when someone feels fatigued, go for those basic movements. So I think it's a huge thing that people don't do. So yeah, well done. of just lean into it, it's great.

Drew (05:02)
I mean

it's better than nothing like you know for me if I go outdoor climbing and I have to like you know drag myself outside I'm like like it's a beautiful day out amazing weather like why don't I want to climb like I don't want to you know like

I'll just go to the gym instead. I don't even want to do that. But then I get there and I'm like, ah, this is fun. OK, it's better than nothing. And I finished the session. I'm like, all right, that was good. I did something today, you know.

Ollie Torr (05:27)
Yeah, So I think one thing we spoke about a bit is kind of how climbing's changed for you over the years and stuff. And obviously you said about your expectations going into this recent trip to where you were and then wanted to take some time off. of say just in the time that you've been studying, kind of how's your relationship with climbing changed in that time? Because I think you went from doing no training at all and just climbing outside.

to obviously at the moment you've kind of flipped that. Is that purely in response to what's going on or in studying?

Drew (05:55)
So that's part of it. So I moved to Colorado mid 2020 to start school. I hadn't really done too much climbing here. I had a trip where did a couple hard boulders before I moved. But for the most part, was pretty much just started climbing outside when I moved here.

And for the first few years, was like four or five, six days a week going outside. you know, it was really good for a while. Like I went through a couple of training cycles already and was kind of like riding off of that for a while. And it was like, why train? Like there was, I want to say I had like three or four separate, like month and a half periods where I do like 20 V 14 or harder boulders. It was like, it was ridiculous. Like even by my standards at the time, it was like, don't.

This is crazy, like I literally have gone outside 10 days in a row and every single day I've done a new V14 or 15. But then you run out of boulders to do and then there's only the really hard ones left and the really annoying ones left. And I got there and then...

of a it's like, fuck, mean, I could go explore, I guess, like I do a lot of that. I love developing. And that's like a different thing too. There's so much more work that goes into that. It's different than just rolling up on a boulder. Like I love it, but developing is like usually a day, you know, to make it worth it. I feel wrecked after. So it's like, fuck, like I got to drive like an hour to find something or I can go punt on.

the same boulder that I don't even really want to do that bad. It's just like hard in there, you know, like after a while it just gets kind of hard to like get psyched, especially when driving or what.

Ollie Torr (07:24)
And guess when you're going out

so frequently as well, so you kind of want to feel something for like six days in a row or five days in a row effort rather than kind of like the trudge on it.

Drew (07:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I don't know, it's like...

It just gets a little tough sometimes and it's like, yeah, like I should be going outside, but like I've spent enough time outside right now. you know, I was really psyched on that for a while. Now I'm so like, it's not that I'm not going to be psyched on that again, just right now, like more psyched on a little different side of climbing. Like, I don't know how long I could sustain what I was doing for. It was pretty tough for a while.

Ollie Torr (07:58)
Does that, I think that's quite an interesting point. Did that should feel come just purely internally, do you think? Or was it from being on the scene and wanting, yeah, I should go out climbing. Like the feel of I should be outside.

Drew (08:08)
That should it.

I think part of that is my personality, but I'd say a bigger part is kind of like the sponsor side of things, I guess. the sponsors I have are great. I love them all. you know, going through a period of like burnout or whatever, you know, a good sponsor is like, yeah, we totally get like, oh, you're not going like you're not on 100 % right now. Like we're going to drop you like.

It doesn't work like that, you know, but at the same time like there's a little bit of the imposter ish Feeling going on when it's like especially recently in the last couple years You know, it feels like the bouldering level has been raised like pretty heftily, know, which is amazing to see it's so sick to see like all the hard stuff being put up by everyone and Having that

inside like right with my own like personal kind of thing with clients it's like I wish I was in on that too so I just feel like I'm on the sidelines now

Ollie Torr (09:02)
Yeah, I mean, so did you feel like every time that if you did something in succession that kind of like just dulled down a little bit, bought you some time before that should feeling came back or is it the case of like always there?

Drew (09:12)
Nah, I guess that's like way longer term.

saying when it's like, man, I haven't done like a hard boulder in like, you know, a long time. I should go do one. It's like, I don't really need to. Like I've done so many hard boulders. I don't need to do a hard boulder for the rest of my life. You know, and I'll still have one of the best ticklists on the planet. Like, like I shouldn't need to do anything, you know, so I'm just waiting until I want to go back and do it.

Ollie Torr (09:28)
Yeah, yeah.

I think that's, it's really important kind of message that you don't hear that often. And I know you've spoken about kind of role models in the past and the people that influenced you quite a lot in the early days in terms of psych. And you kind of want to see that real side of people, don't you? I mean, does that, does that play a role in kind of what you do with your sort of time or what you put out there in on social media in terms of I'm a role model to the younger climbers?

Drew (09:59)
I try my best to be a role model. I mean, there's, at least with pro athletes, like there's always this air of like, you know, my God, they're a pro blah blah. It's like, also just person at end of the day. Like no one's a machine. As much as you can like try and be a machine, can't. So I don't know. It's just normal, I guess.

Ollie Torr (10:16)
Do you often say much to climbers that come up to you and ask about how they should get into the pro world or into the sponsored world? What do you tell them?

Drew (10:26)
For that question specifically, I'd say the best thing, my go-to is usually if you have something that makes you stand out, really lean into that in climbing because it's...

Even with difficulty climbing now, like what 15 years ago it was, you know, V15 like, my god, biggest deal ever so-and-so did like one or two this year and then now it's like a dull week in climbing if like someone doesn't put up like a new V16. It's like the level is just so much higher now that you can't really bank on being like just really good unless you're so far much better than like what everyone else is right now, but I don't.

I don't know of any dark horses who were secretly throwing down like V18 or 19. It would be really cool if there were, but...

Ollie Torr (11:05)
That'd be a great story if that broke.

Drew (11:07)
Yeah, just have like

all the most credible climate. Like, yeah, there's this guy, like he is not human. Like there's no way.

Ollie Torr (11:14)
Yeah, yeah. How do you feel like the sort of the recent V16, V17s kind of suit your style? We talked about that a little bit at the start, but obviously you seem like a really body strong climber and something that's a massive attribute of yours is being able to use those bigger muscles as well to power up climbs. Do you think the sort of the recent climbs that have been put down suit you well? Is there anything you've got your eyes on or inspire you?

Drew (11:39)
I'd hope so like kind of all the newer ones like I'd love to go try them as soon as I have time again Like that'd be a lot easier I think to really get back into it when it's like I haven't been on like a trip where I've been able to like train for with intention of going like You know, all right, let's get started get back in but overall it's I don't know. There's not like one Climb that I really want to do

I just kind of want to like get out and go to poor places and you know more styles more climbs

Ollie Torr (12:09)
Are you thinking you'll

try and work remotely in the US or are you going to try and go abroad once you finish your studies and sort of got a job and stuff that you're happy with?

Drew (12:19)
I don't think I'd like live abroad permanently, but I would like to like time in Europe traveling around and go to Rocklands. Like they're like most international climbing destinations I haven't been to yet.

So it either only comp stuff or basically just like being like, yeah, sorry, I'm like in school and I'm taking summer classes and I'm waking up at four to go out to the Alpine before I can't do this shit. Like, it'd be really nice to be able to have like actual trips lined up again.

Ollie Torr (12:47)
Yeah, it seems to me that in terms of lot of the style, it's kind of, there's so much more opening up in terms of longer boulders as well, in terms of, like say, all the stuff in Switzerland, where it will transfer really well from that Colorado style. I imagine just having a bit of time out there is going to play a massive role in your ability to actually get on those problems.

Drew (13:06)
yeah. Like there's so much stuff out there. Like I, I think about that with like Switzerland specifically. cause I feel like I've never climbed outside there and there's just so many good boulders there. I don't know if I'd go there and be like, all right, let's see each something really hard. like maybe I'll just camp out at Alfey in the entire time. Or if I go there and be like,

Let's try and do this same, like try as many boulders as possible. Because I think I'm leaning towards the ladder right now. It's just a lot more fun.

Ollie Torr (13:33)
Yeah, So talk to me in terms of about your style of climbing or at least your perception, because I think we talked about this compared to some of the other pros on the scene. Do you feel that you are very similar to someone else or another climber? Or is there a certain thing that you think about with your own climbing style that stands out? Kind of what are your strengths or what makes you stand out?

Drew (13:54)
and

I don't think I don't climb other posts necessarily.

I kind of always said my fingers I think are like my weakest part. I have been working on that. Yeah, like I got psyched on board climbing. I can already feel like a nice difference there compared to like when I started a couple months ago climbing on the boards. I guess I didn't seriously start board climbing until I got back from Vegas, so it was like a month. But it's kind of like a nice thing, I guess. I guess my...

I don't like, I don't know. I don't really know if I have like a singular strength. Um, I've kind of thought about that a lot. There's like my old coach on vertical world, um, Tyson him, he would have these like really long-term plans for me. Basically. like, I wouldn't even know like what, like the point was of some of the things we do. I'd be like, all right, sure. Like I'm listening, like whatever you say, man. And then, you know, six months ago, but I'd be like, Oh, I get it now. Okay.

And so we do that for like enough times, basically, where basically be like addressing some like very like long-term like weakness sort of things, turn them into strengths, basically. Like, I'm not the tallest person. I'm like 5'8", about. I have a minus one ape index. Like, I'm not short. I'm not like super tall either, but I feel like I climb like I'm a lot taller than I actually am.

It's from growing up being tiny, like keeping my hips into the wall basically as close to the wall as possible so I could get a couple extra inches. So I think like kind of things like that, I guess like I would call my strength more than anything. I guess like very fine grained, like technical things or heel hooks. I love heel hooks. I think, yeah, let's go.

Ollie Torr (15:23)
Is that why you're

weightlifting? Do you think transfers so well in terms of that body tension? I'm 5'7 as well, so I feel like that kind of weightlifting, deadlifting, just, it means you can drive into that foothold so much longer, as soon as I've recruited in that pattern. And then if I'm not doing it, I feel kind of slouchy.

Drew (15:31)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like I guess my theory with lifting is like, you're kind of just making all your virtual parts as strong as possible. like in theory, you should just be stronger and be able to pull harder and try harder. And I don't have like numbers to back anything up with like rate of force or anything like that. All I have is like, I literally just like feel stronger and I have more energy and I could climb for longer. So.

Ollie Torr (16:03)
You said your fingers feel like potentially a weaker part. Is that on all grips? Is it just on smaller holds? Is that because you've been climbing in the gym when you were lot younger so you weren't exposed as much? Why do you think that is?

Drew (16:15)
I'd say like just straight, like, hangboarding style strength, block pole. My numbers just aren't that good. Like, I mean, I, it sounds funny cause like, it's one of those like, I'm so weak on that.

My fingers are still really strong, you know, just I think relative to like what I feel like other pros, like relative strength range or like body ranges or something like that. like, I feel like I have a lot more room to like improve there.

Ollie Torr (16:38)
Yeah, and I guess it's one of those things as well. Why I ask the question is people like Aidan Roberts who basic testing is just like kind of rubbish actually. But yeah, it's just not applicable. it's for his, soon as he gets that dip joint flexed is exceptional. So yeah, I was wondering if there's like a certain position where you're like, actually, no, I am good here. Or is it just across the board compared to your level? It seems like a weakness.

Drew (16:47)
Yes,

It just seems like a weakness. like I can definitely like close, like I can crimp really hard if I want to, but I think my fingers just like it's a little more taxing than I'd like it to be longterm. it's like, just addressing things like that right now. I don't know. really nice. I've never.

Ollie Torr (17:17)
How have you done with injuries? Have you found your

fingers are much injured?

Drew (17:21)
Never been injured ever. Never ever, not even one time ever.

Ollie Torr (17:23)
ever.

Oh wow, that's amazing. And the same with the rest of your sort of knees, elbows, shoulders. Yeah, touch wood.

Drew (17:28)
Thank

head snows, shoulders. I got the backwards. But yeah.

Ollie Torr (17:34)
That's amazing.

Drew (17:35)
you won't.

Ollie Torr (17:35)
Yeah, yeah, it's so much about behaviour. Like you say, there's nothing in details, there's no secrets really. It's just about behaviour and people. That's why it's nice hearing, you in terms of you know yourself, which is like absolutely massive. But have you tried something where you went, God, that did not work. That was a bad idea.

Drew (17:42)
Yeah.

I'm sure I have, I'm trying to think of a good example right now. I can't think of one off the top of my head where I'm like, that was a waste of time. I really shouldn't have done that. I guess in terms of like.

If I go out to like a concert with my buddies and get absolutely smashed and then try and train the next day, know, yeah, we know that's not going to work. But that's not something where I'm like, look back and like, I regret that so much. Like that was a waste. It like, no, it wasn't a waste. Like I was just, you know, take a couple of days, push back the training, you

I don't think I've had anything where I've been like, I was really psyched on this training block and this training idea for a while. And then I went through it. And then by the end of

actually hindered me or that did nothing. I think everything I've done so far has helped in some way, at least.

Ollie Torr (18:38)
What's kind of in the staples you've picked up about yourself? I say, I talk about this with my athletes and like Aidan again is another example of, we talk about the playbook, which is like, you know, everything, even the little behaviors that you do, this session before a day out just makes you a bit more recruited. Don't do this kind of stretching or this food doesn't really work for you.

It's like building those things up. Kind of what your staple playbook kind of elements.

Drew (19:06)
and

I guess it sounds kind of weird. Like the busier I am, like the happier I am, like the happier I am, the harder I climb. I have learned more and more recently that like pretty much anytime I am feeling like I'm not climbing well, I'm still really good shape. It's literally all in my head. And it's one of those like hard to get myself to like.

try hard to begin with, like grab a crimp and just be like, I don't even like want to pull on this hold. And so I guess a good staple is knowing that when I feel like that or whatever, like just showing up is better than nothing. And usually by the end of it, I get psyched anyway. It's kind of just like put your foot through the door and just keep putting one foot forward.

That's been a really good one for me, at least. like, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just better than nothing, you know? And...

As annoying as it is, like I literally like feel better and climb harder when I'm like actively training versus like not. Like I really wish I could like periodize, but I think kind of just with everything right now, like it's just so much easier to like stay in the routine basically. And the better my routine is just the better I feel all around. So.

Ollie Torr (20:12)
Yeah, I think when you're not busy, you have to actually think about walking up to the door before you put your foot through it, whilst if you're really busy, you're kind of already falling through the door and then you're already psyched and getting on with it. And it seems like you have quite a busy mind as well, so that kind of keeps you ticking over and then you don't overthink each component of your life as much.

Drew (20:29)
Yeah, like I just, I feel like I have way too many pro like, I get so psyched on like these long-term projects. Like some of them aren't even climbing related, man. Like, like some backyard stuff or whatever, you know, and then it's like all I can think about. I'm obsessed over it and like.

For me, it's like if I can break up a few different projects into smaller pieces, and then each day I'm like, just do a little bit on each of those or something, or a lot on one of them one day or so, that tends to work the best as well. I guess it's around about one day.

Ollie Torr (20:58)
And do find that when you're

like in the projects or doing like working on, if you've been really busy, it makes to reduce expectation as it helps you perform, like get outside your own head if you arrive at projects when you've been really busy, or do you find that it kind of just depends?

Drew (21:14)
I guess it just depends like there's some things where you can't really see progress on for a while And you just have to believe that the progress is still happening Those ones are a little bit harder. I feel like Especially like software stuff man. Oh my god. This is so annoying It's like nice

Ollie Torr (21:31)
Go on,

talk to me about your software project. What does that look like?

Drew (21:35)
Yeah,

I don't have any like big ones right now. Actually, that's a lie. have a big one. I just don't want to talk about it.

Ollie Torr (21:43)
Is it in terms of what you're actually doing? Is it in terms of coding and building stuff?

Drew (21:48)
Yeah, it's

creative. don't know. It's like, I never thought I was artistic. Really. Just you never, like, I don't make music. I don't paint or anything like that. I don't film. I'd like to, but I don't know. But the code is, it's kind of like art to me. I love it.

Ollie Torr (22:02)
And

is that, does that look like you sort of sitting down and just being completely engrossed for hours on end? Yeah, and just you kind of look up and go, my God, where's the time gone?

Drew (22:07)
Yeah. Yeah, like where I'm

Yeah, that happened last night. I was on my computer and I look at the computer and I go, fuck, I got a podcast in a few hours. So I read your message that way. It was like, fuck. But it's like, I don't know. It's there's so few things I'm like, I guess better like this than video games, know, like took it wrong.

playing video games, if I'm gonna lose track of time doing something, I'd rather it be some sort of creative expression like this.

Ollie Torr (22:35)
I think it's one of those things I keep hearing counter opinions on in terms of when you reach excellence, it's having like a timestamp to start and stop and you have to stay within this realm and just be consistent. But I didn't really know of anything amazing that's been done using that method compared to someone being able to fully drop into something and just obsess over it and just go with the motivation. Like that's when kind of great things kind of happen.

Drew (22:59)
Yeah.

I guess it's hard to say because like, I don't know. Like, do you know who said that quote to me? Or is that just one of those like stock quote sort of things?

Ollie Torr (23:09)
It was from a book by Oliver Berkman called 4000 Hours, 4000 Weeks, 4000 Weeks. I think it's 4000 Weeks. It's pretty much 90, I think it's 80 or 90 years. That's kind of like the average lifespan. It was talking about sort of the amount of time we have available in like consistent progress comes from, you know, bookending the starts and stops, but it's a little bit like...

Drew (23:15)
soon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ollie Torr (23:33)
the four hour work week or any of that kind of stuff where it's really nice when someone's already been successful to talk about how they try to live now versus getting there in the first place. And I'm kind of in the belief of the graft in the first place.

Drew (23:44)
Yeah.

Yeah. And guess that one, that one's a little tough too, cause like, I feel like the, if you kind of dissect what that's saying a little bit, like it's more the fact, like when I hear that my interpretation is like.

you would, in order to reach excellence with something like that, you need the consistency. You need to be able to be consistent and not burn out for four hours, at least a day or something like that, to be able to hit your time every single day. But also, does that mean that, oh man, I'm so psyched on this right now. I don't want to stop, but I'm at my four hours. No, lean into that. If I'm like,

Ollie Torr (24:20)
Well that's

the point it's saying is you're to walk away when you're absolutely like psyched to stay there.

Drew (24:26)
Yeah, no, but that's what I'm saying is like, at least like, coming from like the professional like climbing side of things, like I feel like that's a different perspective as well than like most people because it's like I've been through that. I know that I've been through that, you know, I've been through the like logger time, four hours a day, blah, blah, blah for decades, you know. And so I don't know, it's a little interesting hearing that because for me, I'm like, if I were to

only do my stuff for four hours a day, I would never get anything done. I need so much more time, but I need to be psyched in order to spend that. And I need to be able to put the time in every single day to begin with. So it's a little more complex than like just black and white, like stay within the time or like get super psyched. It's gotta be a healthy mix, I think. This is everything in life. It's all about balance.

Ollie Torr (25:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you think, have you found that your climbing and non-climbing projects regularly conflict with each other? Like, I mean today, I don't know whether you're gonna feel fresh to go climbing, like training, and you've spent yesterday training hard, and you feel good? That's perfect.

Drew (25:29)
I don't think they really conflict. mean, there's some days where it's like, I'm not going to be able to like do a bunch of backyard work or something. If I'm like going outside, you know, like, I'm not going to want to go develop and break rocks and then go do the same thing in my backyard, you know? So it's kind of like pick and choose like which things you want to do.

Like I won't be able to make progress on like each of the like goal types or whatever, whether it's like climbing or life or like, you know, reading or even something as benign as like, my New Year's resolution. I want to do the splits, you know,

It's like there's no way I can, there's no way I'll be able to like last minute that, you know, that's like a five, 10 minutes a day for a long time sort of thing. And so, I don't know, it's like putting a little bit of effort just, yeah, splitting up into as many things. it's like always moving forward. But some days if I just can't do it on one, I can make it up on the other. I don't know. It's been working absolute wonders for me at least. So.

Ollie Torr (26:08)
Yeah.

That's great.

Drew (26:24)
anyone out there listening

to this takes away one thing. I hope it's that. Like, figure out a way to keep moving forward with everything.

Ollie Torr (26:32)
think that's good shout. I mean, is there anything else where you're thinking, you know, whether it's nutrition or sleep or something where you're like, actually, I've just, I've learned this over the last few years and this works for me so well. Because I always find these things like really interesting that, you know, someone like yourself who's been so analytical and been through loads of different stages of climbing as well, trying, like you say, the structured training, the non-structured training.

and you kind of pick up these things a lot more than the someone who doesn't experiment as much.

Drew (27:01)
I'd say, at least for food, the biggest one I've noticed. I kinda like skip breakfast a lot of time. I'll just like chug a bunch of coffee.

kind of do that all morning until like noon or something and then finally I'm like hungry enough I'm like alright let's go get some food but I just kind of like did it like I didn't like it wasn't intentional like I just wake up and be like I don't

start working and then all sudden I'm like, man, I'm pretty hungry. It's noon. I should probably go get some food. but then I see studies that are basically talking about intermittent fasting for like a 16 hour period out of the day. And I start counting the hours and I'm like, huh, I somehow landed exactly on 16 hours randomly. Like just over time, I kind of defaulted to that, you know, I wonder why, like, is that just

you know, my body like naturally gets me there because it's like, yeah, you just feel the best doing this. And then like, happened to read like another study after that's basically like, you're like, you know, ATP production is like the highest or something. Like, I don't even remember what the stat was, but it was basically like some sort of like body energy production system is like, you know, does the best with 16 hours of fasting right before.

Ollie Torr (28:06)
Yeah, that's kind

of why I want to keep pushing this bit a little bit because it seems like you've found things by natural experimentation or just allowed it to happen. Then you found patterns to work for you. Like you say, there is research to back that up significantly and stuff, but did that start because of it being naturally good for the human body? And you've got that autophagy in the morning.

Drew (28:27)
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah,

chicken or egg thing, right? Like, is it, you know, is it one thing to be like me to read the paper and be like, Oh, I'll start fasting for 16 hours. Then I actually feel pretty good versus like, Oh, this is just what I do. And then read the paper. Like, Oh, I wonder why that, I wonder if that explains it, you know, which I feel like that one has like a lot more credibility at least.

Ollie Torr (28:37)
and

Drew (28:50)
because then you're not like psychosomatically like convincing yourself that, you know, I actually do feel great. Blah, blah. After the fact of reading something, it's like you're already biased at that point maybe. But now, now I'm trying to think of like other things too. Cause that was like, it was a nice one, but.

Ollie Torr (29:07)
Well, it seems like zooming out on your, even like thinking about your climbing from what I know of it, it seems like you could almost map out the cycles of your deep training phases versus outdoor phases and kind of like get the body strong, then stop the training completely for a short period of time, get the body strong. And I think it actually kind of maps quite well with the other athletes I know that have gone through junior training.

Drew (29:25)
Yeah.

Ollie Torr (29:31)
competition style, outdoors, research, the body strength, top it all that up, provides a base, carries it on, transfer outside, go to project mode, body breaks down a little bit because it's too specific, go back to full body mode.

Drew (29:45)
Yep. It's like a universal

experience. It's crazy.

Ollie Torr (29:49)
Yeah,

that's one thing I would say. We have obviously loads of athletes that train with us all year round, is, depending on their lifestyle, is a real pleasure. if anyone has like, wants to try cycling it, they can go through that phase of build the base, full body.

Drew (29:51)
you

Ollie Torr (30:02)
build the mileage, get your rock acumen up, and then go really specific, try your best on something. And your body will break down because of that specificity, and I think you kind of get that mental burnout a little bit. So then go away from the real specific coordination, go back to the absolute basics. What's the minimum I can do is the weightlifting. My mind's recovered, my shoulders, all the smaller muscle groups start to rebuild, start to even out again, and then go back to the cycle.

Drew (30:25)
And then your floor is just a little bit higher for the next time and your ceiling is a little bit higher too. So, yeah, I don't know. I always look at like training stuff, like stock market, just like this. And then over time goes up and then you know, got your downs, but I don't know. It kind of helps me a lot.

Ollie Torr (30:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's like

a progress chart where it's all just a spiral. As long as the line's kind of going upwards, it's all good.

Drew (30:47)
Yeah,

it only matters when you look at it long, long term. you know, it like right now, I'm probably physically, I'm so much stronger than I ever have been outdoor climbing. I don't I don't know. Maybe I have no clue. Like.

Maybe I'm a couple grades lower and it's gonna take a little bit of time to like snap back there. But I also think that like in a couple years or a year or whenever I'm done, I don't even know when I'm gonna finish with the cycle. Like I might do a really long one with this. But it's just really cool to be like, where's the ceiling and where's the floor now? Cause I kind of know what my ceiling was last time. Got pretty close to that. So.

Ollie Torr (31:28)
So your weightlifting body strength this cycle, is this the peak you've ever been at in terms of the basic stuff?

Drew (31:35)
Overall, yeah, like I, I'm still getting back into it. like I was really psyched and then like I had a pretty hectic, like Christmas ish time. Like, even right before, like one of my teammates passed, Michael Gardner on the artterics team. was, in Nepal. was pretty gnarly accident. it's like, that was the thing. And then athlete trip and then.

like cram for finals and then go to Vegas. It was just like, got super, like I was doing really good with the cycle until like all that, which is fine, you know, happens. And then now it's like kind of rebuilding back in, but the floor is already higher than it was like six months ago.

Ollie Torr (32:09)
So the next phase, we talk about, okay, you're going out and you want to tick a lot or do more, might get your rock acumen up, what does progress look like for you now? Like, if you looked back and you're like, now I'm better, what does that actually look like?

Drew (32:22)
So I guess the most abstract way I could put it is just by how strong I feel on the wall. A good measure. used to, back when I was doing all the Colorado stuff, and if I'd go to other areas too, there was, I'd say, probably a 40 % chance, 50 % chance I could just do any V14 in a day. Didn't matter the style.

short, crimpy, sloppy, long. It's like, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna shit on this thing today. And I think for me, to know that I'm another level higher to have to be able to do that on V15, like...

I don't know. It seems kind of logical. it was, V15 was at the point for me where I could get really like, I'd done some in a day, maybe done like five or so in a day or something like that. Like get really, really lucky sometimes. We like, that was perfect. Like suited me really well. felt good, good weather, good skin, good mind, like everything.

But also it's like any sort of like V12 or something like that, you know, it's like, okay, this is so far under where I'm at right now that like realistically, unless this is like super Morpho, like this shouldn't really be that hard for me to like put down. Like, I mean, yeah, I'll probably get like pumped or tired or something, but I can expect to like do this in a sesh pretty handily. And so I'd say like for outdoors, like knowing that I'm at another level is like, what's, yeah, just.

what's above where I'm at right now, or where my peak was. So I'd say yeah, just by literally climbing harder because it's a pretty easy way to tell if you're doing better or not on average.

Ollie Torr (33:49)
Does that

excite you? Does it feel daunting to be like, I want to be able to put down what I did on V15?

Drew (33:56)
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's not possible. I mean, it might as well like train for it. It's not like it's that far off realistically. Like, I mean, I'd feel like if I didn't have my.

tick list to back it up, I'd sound like such a dick right now, but I might as well like train for it that way at least. And it's so much more fun for me to like think about that where it's like, I don't know. Yeah, I like projecting. I like the process of figuring something out, but going through that on like a nine a where I'm like, this is literally just going to be work for like a really, really long time.

It's just not as fun. I've just never had as much fun doing that versus like, let me go see how many of these hard boulders I can do. Like, let's turn it into a game. How quickly can I do this? And it's like right at that level of, if I play my cards super right this session, I could walk away with this end. But it's just pretty fun to think about getting stronger to push that level up again. Just being well rounded enough that it doesn't matter what the style is.

just makes all the boulders more accessible.

Ollie Torr (34:55)
I think it doesn't get

talked about enough, that goal. I mean, I think it's brilliant. I've always personally cycled between a year of volume, which is exactly that. I want to do something in a day or something in a certain amount of attempts, and then a year of a longer project. kind of, I'd personally flip-flop between the two or have done depending on what the goal is. But I think a lot of...

climbers would actually benefit from having that mindset a bit more because they've got limited time and like you say they don't want to go back to the same place or if it's a really long distance or something like that over and over.

Drew (35:18)
you

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess that's like a product of like my school shit as well, you know? I mean, this is something I've talked to a lot with like, you know, the random like DMs I get like.

Yeah, it's, mean, like I can't just go up and like go to Switzerland right now. Like I just cannot do that. I have not been able to do that for like a long time, you know? It's like I have a couple hours like on one of these days this week, basically, like maybe more if I'm like really on top of my schoolwork and the weather was, weather's good and I can like, okay, I'll like, I'll do that later. You know, like I'm to go outside today. But.

Still, it's like I don't have that much time. Like never have had that much. And, you know, again, like I love it. I love being super busy. just makes me happy to, you know, have a bunch of stuff to like have to do all the time. But it's also like, how do I make the most out of the session when you got to drive, I got to hike. I might not have buddies with me because like, you know, like I have a little window right now. I got to make the most out of this hour before I got to go.

I can't afford to just camp under this boulder for like seven hours, like as much as I want to. Just can't do that. But that's also like with a lot of other climbers who are like weekend warriors or family or something like that. Got a lot of other stuff going on besides just climbing like.

It feels like a lot more relatable to that, at the end of the day, if you have an hour to get on your project, it doesn't matter if you're trying to V10 or a V6 or a V15. It's you and the rock for an hour. Have fun.

Ollie Torr (36:45)
How much does climbing with others play a factor in your time and focus and stuff? you prioritise sharing a project or being with others or is it something that doesn't bother you?

Drew (36:51)
Shit.

I wouldn't say that necessarily bothers me. I like climbing with other people. I like climbing by myself too. It's very different mindsets. When I'm by myself, I'm usually a lot more listening to music, kind of thinking, trying to work through.

I use a lot of alone time like that at least to kind of map out future plans or to crystallize that stuff a little bit more. it's almost like therapeutic. You can just go out and have a nice session in woods.

Same time, climbing is dangerous and there's absolutely scenarios where I'm like, I'm either not going to that area by myself because it's terrifying there and I get stalked by some big animal every time I go there. Or it's like a high ball and I need a spot or it's got like a fall potential or something, or it's really hard. I someone to video me, you know? So it's kind of like mixing all of those basically. Part of me like.

sometimes feels like a lot of my friends are, you I have such a good friend group here. Like I know people from like back in Seattle, like from well before, like the climb, my climbing blew up. We all just climbed together. They ended up going to like, you know, the same school I met and like there's a nice crew of climbers down here at Mines as well. And, you know, so it's all these people that are like around my age, like really psyched all the time.

always down to support, you know, but the problem is sometimes I feel like it's like the default is to be like, Drew, what do you want to do instead of like, you know, not like I'm, I'm in the homie group too. Like it's my turn to hike pads too, you know? it's just kind of like figuring out ways to like match that the most. So everyone can be the most like, cause it's not fair for me to be like, no, you don't get to try your project. You got to just like sit under this thing, watch me climb for a while.

By the way, there's nothing else here. It's just this one V 15. Like, you know, you gotta think more longterm at least if you want to keep having homies come support you. gotta, it's a two way street, right? So.

Ollie Torr (38:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, totally. mean, you definitely run out of friends if you kept doing that every time. They're only expected to turn up to 115. It's so funny hearing that wilderness plays a role in your partnerships as a Brit. Just like zero dangerous animals.

Drew (38:54)
Yeah.

man. Yeah. I guess you guys have no big land predators, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's some big ones. There's some really big ones out here. and it's, I don't know. It's, you never really hear about attacks because they're super rare. You know, there's probably like one mountain lion attack in Colorado. You're like one bear attack a year. Like, but I don't know. Like,

That's just a normal like hiking trail or something that someone gets like mauled on. You know, I'm like, I am deep in the woods a lot of the time. And it is like the most unnerving feeling ever. When you can tell, like I'm talking about right there, hairs standing up on my arm like right now, you know, like some you'll hear like a branch snap or a twig snap and like, you know, the millions of years of evolution that has hardwired that into your brain immediately is like.

Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Like, you know, it's like the craziest, like, you know, we were civilized people, blah, blah, blah. But then you get far enough back into the woods and all of sudden there's like, there's no civilization. Like this is me and like a big animal. And I really hope this thing is like full. already like, just see eyes like glowing back at you, like in the middle of the night, you're like, and they're gone all of sudden.

Ollie Torr (40:07)
I I didn't-

And you can tell the height of the eyes where they are as well. I remember I skiing in the back country in Jackson Hole. And I just remember being like the same thing, just kind of like, what the hell is that in the trees? And I was just not used to seeing eyes that high. And I was like, go, go, go, go.

Drew (40:17)
Yay.

Yeah, yeah, you're

like, oh, that's a kitty cat. OK, let's get out of here. But yeah, it's scary with it. like, you know, deer are pretty easy to tell. And like elk, elk you can hear because they just scream. It's really scary sometimes. Like you have one like 50 feet from you. Like, what the hell? But.

Ollie Torr (40:32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Drew (40:45)
Yeah, dude, every now and then, like, I had this one time I was hiking, I think I was with like a couple buddies, but we were like walking out and there's this field like by us and we were like by the forest. And I like shined my light down there and I just see like these like two like pinpoint eyes like predator, like right next to each other, like predator style, like just right above, like in the tall grass, you know, like just looking straight through it. And I'm like, yo, late.

Yeah, I think we should keep our eye on that. And so we keep walking and for like a mile every time we turn around, this thing is like the exact same distance from us, like just, you know, like this. we're like, I really like I'm so glad you're here, man. Like I really, really am glad you're here with me right now. Yeah. You like look up.

Ollie Torr (41:28)
just being stalked. You must look pretty

big with pads on as well, so it's still like stalking you despite there being a group of you with pads and stuff.

Drew (41:36)
I didn't have pads this time, I was being a bad person and stashing them.

Ollie Torr (41:42)
I'm

more vulnerable. There you go, that's

Drew (41:43)
stashing your thoughts. Sorry, I'm just talking too much.

Ollie Torr (41:47)
One thing you mentioned then in terms of like spending time on your own and kind of like planning for the future and stuff. Do you do like any mindfulness stuff? I know you mentioned about obviously you've done some long term projects and you're busy with stuff. Do you kind of spend much time focusing on your mindset?

Drew (42:03)
Yes, I'd say, but I think that's another one of those, I do it my way, I guess, and then I read stuff about it or whatever, and I'm like, hmm, I guess that's kind what I do to begin with. So I haven't really done too much, let me read all these books or whatever and figure it out. It's mostly just like, yeah.

to go hiking out in the woods or something just to be by myself. I don't know. It's just...

Ollie Torr (42:31)
Have

you got any practices that you've kind of just made up yourself? Like, do you kind of find it easy to hit flow state or anything like that in terms of like switching on ready for a climb? Like you said, you're listening to music. What kind of gets you in the right mindset to like climb well? Because you must have a really good tactic to be going out so many days and performing back to back to back.

Drew (42:50)
So I'll try my best to cover all of them. But I take it back to, think if there's one most important thing I could say, it'd probably be what I'm about to say. But I think something else I stumbled on, and this is what I've been working on. I have a couple books I've been working on for a bit.

Unfortunately, progress is kind of slow because writing's hard and I'm refusing to use any of the like LLMs for that shit. That seems fake to me. But yeah. And one of them is more or less like kind of answering or trying to answer a lot of these questions like, you know, how there's a really big distinction between

Ollie Torr (43:21)
So you're writing books at the moment. cool.

Drew (43:35)
So even backing up is why I need a lot of time, because I'm just seeing and figuring out how to say it. There's a lot of different archetypes in climbing or whatever. You have these people who are so physically strong sometimes, ripping one arm pull-ups and whatever. They climb these seven.

Ollie Torr (43:40)
And they're now on site.

Drew (43:54)
You know, it's like, I know, you know, like the type I'm talking about. It's like nothing, you know, it's nothing wrong with it. Like there's no wrong way to like be a climber or whatever, but like, how is it that you can have someone like that who like theoretically has like a way higher tool set and capacity to work with than someone who's like, you know,

Ollie Torr (43:57)
I know.

Drew (44:14)
the classic like, you know, really scrawny, super strong fingers, blah, blah. Like not body strong, like can't bench their own body weight sort of thing. Climbing V13, like, you know, and.

Like I obviously like that's kind like a caricature, like I'm like grossly like over exaggerating some of the stuff. But like, you know, the point stands, like there's something different about some climbers who figure out like, what is it? What is it that I'm missing to make myself better? Like, and the answer isn't like I need a hangboard more usually, or I just need to do a one arm pull up. Like it's way deeper than that. And so what is it? You know?

because that like, I know I sound like kind of like mumbo jumbo right now, like, you know, but it's like a real thing.

Ollie Torr (44:57)
No, no, that is the

definition of my career. It's great.

Drew (45:01)
Yeah. It's like a real thing. Like, you know, I was climbing with

my buddy yesterday at the shop at the tension shop and he's like trying this move. And even then it was like, you know, we kind of got in like this little conversation. Like there's levels to beta, you know, it's like the first beta. It's like, how do you get to the top of the wall? Like, you know, left hand goes to this hold, right hand goes to this whole blah, Foot holds here. Cool. You like identify like what you have to work with, you know, the next step is like the ordering of that. Like I got to move my

foot up first and I gotta move my right hand and then turn this way and go and then like the level after that is that's where like the magic happens it's like I know I have to jump to this hold but the way I'm swinging out on this my body's opening up too much right now and so if I try to dress that like off bat by jumping with my foot a little more right

Like my swing isn't going to turn as much. And that's like the 10 degrees rotation that I need to save in order to stay on the wall. It's like you can get really deep into these movement patterns, basically, and figure out really how do you use everything that you have.

in order to climb as hard as possible. Cause like for anyone who's like training, like that kind of is the goal, right? Like if you're like, what's the point of training, like training, unless you're trying to like address something or get better. Like it's one thing if it's like, okay, my main, like I'm just maintaining, like I'm not, I don't want to put in the effort to get stronger right now. I just don't want to lose anything. It's totally fine. You know?

But if you're trying to get better, like truly trying to get better, I think there are ways that are a lot more efficient, at least to get better quicker. And so yeah, how do you as an athlete figure out what those are? Because everybody's different. And what I need is probably a lot different than what Aidan needs. It doesn't mean like what?

Ollie Torr (46:43)
And what's your method in terms of

how do you learn that for you?

Drew (46:48)
Yeah, and so I guess this part of it goes into like, it's like this curiosity thing and like this very long term way of thinking. And that kind of goes, I was going to tie that into like the outdoor stuff as well. But like a lot of it is kind of like experimentation. It's like, you know, when we talk about fasting earlier, like you have to be able to recognize that and put

those pieces together, like I know I feel better when I do that. so I start leaning into that more at least. And then, now I have like more evidence, I guess, to back it up. Like we should probably keep doing this. Okay, that's something I figured out. Like.

You know, it's like keeping track. You need to be able to keep track of like a ton of different variables basically. And some of them can be like, some of it could probably be done on like a notepad or something like that. Like, you know, I ate this much, I slept this much. Like these were my numbers today, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, if you can't keep track of that stuff, like that's great. But a lot of other things too are like.

maybe like a sum is greater than the parts, like you can't write down everything. Like some of it, you're just going to have to know and be able to lean into at least. and that's like basically having enough experience built up over time in order to like make a game day decision. Like even though like my

Programming or what I thought I should do is this like maybe I switch it up and just do this like You know, I need an extra rest day or something like I'm listening to my body or I'm supposed to have a rest day But I feel really really good and I think I don't need one, you know, so there's like a lot of Maturity at least in order to be able to like be truly honest with that

You know, like I've had times where I feel good, but I'm like, I don't think so. Like some, something's not right. Like not today, you know, I don't know what would happen if I pushed through, but I didn't get hurt. And I waited a day and had a way better session the next day, you know? I guess that's like kind of the most basic part of it right there. if I don't know if you want to say anything.

Ollie Torr (48:39)
Well,

how much do you put on a weight? Do you put on so placebo nocebo belief because how much weight in terms of decision making to thought processes? I'm 100 % in line with you on those factors. You're controlling each variable and particularly the refinement of the beta. I had a really good conversation with Will recently about Excalibur and just like the...

Drew (48:48)
how much.

Ollie Torr (49:06)
the refinement is so small and it goes from I am not able to use this hold to no I get it it's totally fine did it and I think but I think in terms like patterns and stuff and even sometimes with beta I think beta is a little bit different because it's so physical but

our belief that something is right for us can change whether it's right for us compared to just whether it is just if we were robots and there was no human element to that. So say for you with the fact that you've done the fasting, do you think your belief that that's a good thing for you is also does that play a factor or like your belief in the day wasn't right? Like do you or

kind of sometimes like I've had it with people in the past where they say that training or that method is not for me. I can't use that method that is not right for me. And I'm like, I'm not sure that is true, but because you believe it so much, I don't think it is gonna work.

Drew (49:57)
Yeah, I think they're both true. you know, placebo is, you know, back to my peer review, as a well, documented thing, even to the point where you can know it's a placebo and it's still gonna do like that. That's insane to me. Like I know I'm just drinking sugar water, but it's still making my headache go away. Like, yeah.

Ollie Torr (50:16)
Crazy isn't it? Absolutely crazy that works.

Drew (50:19)
So I mean, that just goes to show like how truly adaptable like people really truly are, you know, like you can like human bodies insane, like the shit we can adapt to basically given enough time, you know. And so with training, like

I think, yeah, probably like everything generally works for everyone. Maybe specifically, you can get really, really specific into things. If I were to eat, for food, for example, I'm sure there's more study, and I don't know too much about this field, but I know there are more studies coming out basically to discover kind of your...

genetic lineage basically. So say I come from Mediterranean, like I'm not, but if I was, it might be better for my body to have like, know, diet really high and like figs and olives and stuff like that. know, like it just might be better for me on like a biochemical level. So.

Like I think there's a line to that, but also if I'm eating like a bunch of vegetables and staying away from processed foods and whatnot, like that's not going to be bad. Like it's still going to be really good. It just might not be like that a hundred percent. Um, and so like having an athlete, I'm sure it'd be like, I'm sure that's not going to work for me. Like, okay. Yeah. But that attitude is not going to, so let's just not even like deal with that, you know? Um, yeah.

goes back to that humility thing as well.

Ollie Torr (51:40)
So you've got that curiosity, experimentation, which you take outside with beta, with experimentation and patterns over time. What's a further factor to that that you're talking about in terms of your book and further exploration?

Drew (51:54)
So level four, you know, we talked about level three with like the turning level four is where she gets interesting, like really interesting for me at least. Cause I think that's the one that I maybe figured out that let me climb as hard as I was doing for as long as it was. And that piece at least like before I get into that,

I think the goal setting side of things that we talked about like a little bit earlier, you know, like, do I want to spend a year on a really hard proj or do I want to just do a bunch of mileage as much as possible? Like, you know, you will gain certain skills, mental and physical out of like the V 17 V 16, whatever your hardest boulder is, know, you also gain a lot sticking. I think it's.

four-ish grades under that seems like the most accurate five like I'd imagine say like a someone who's done b9 you know

they like really want to do their first V10, there's still going to be V6s that they struggle on, V7s that they struggle on, you know? And so there's like, and because climbing grades exist in such a range, you know, like something that is hard V14 for me, maybe like V12 for someone else, like that's happened before. I've been off with grades before, like it's fine, you know?

Also, some V14 for me might be like V15 or 16 for someone else. you know, and so if I do as many, if I just like make this pyramid of, I want to do as many of this grade as possible, like, yeah, the average is going to be there. I'm still going to get the outliers, you know, then I can do that with the 13, 14, 15, 16, like keep doing the pyramid and just basically attack as many boulders as possible at once. Um, as many projects as possible. If I don't do one now, I can just keep it for

the future. And so that's what I was doing. I tried so many boulders, figured out beta really quickly on a lot of them. And even some of them, it was like, I bet I could do this within like four sessions coming back, but I don't want to do it in four sessions. I would just wait a year until I'm stronger and have more mileage and have done more boulders. And I'm just going to come back and do it in 10 minutes. And so that's what I did. And I figured out a way to basically like,

Constantly have a slate of like 10 15 boulders that were next session. I could do them next session or so And I just pick and choose which ones most likely I could do basically Depending on weather skin how I felt all that I just did that for a couple years and then Sometimes I'd reevaluate by going back to a boulder

And nope, still really hard. Nope, still can't do that. You know, like there's this one, ACR, Railway. Like super, yeah, Aiden Roberts, F.A., dude. That thing's so hard. Like nasty crimps. I try that thing like every summer, like once or twice, and kicked my ass. It's like, dude, this is insane. There's no way. Like this is so hard.

And I just came back the next summer and it was like three tries. I was like, Whoa. Like, okay. I'm definitely stronger now. Like I had never did that move in 10 sessions and I just almost flashed it this go round, you know? And so.

Ollie Torr (54:46)
How did you

assess the difference between year, say like you went session eight, nine, or like seven, eight, nine, you're like, no way, not like this, isn't it? Like what was the...

Drew (54:56)
Well, because it wasn't eight or nine in a row.

was like, I do like.

Ollie Torr (54:59)
But what made

the difference in the analysis or the change for you to go from nine to 10 and be like three sessions? was it like, did you go, no, I need to prepare for this differently to what I thought between session seven and eight and nine. Because you had a bit, you had a gap time between each of those sessions. Did you do something different or was it just a total increase in performance level?

Drew (55:20)
I have not done any training before like the last summer. It was just totally increase in like, I'm actually just stronger now. and so it was nice because it was like, I definitely could have done that Boulder the first go around. Like I didn't get that much stronger in a couple of years to the point where it was like, you know, this move that was like impossible, like, you know,

Now I'm literally twice as strong. You know, it wasn't that it was like, probably could have done it in like a couple of weeks if I sieged it and I was just going after that boulder and I was going, it was like 20 degrees and you know, it was like, I didn't want to do that. Like that seemed like more of a waste of time. Like, yeah, I could probably walk away with one send right now, but I'd rather do one send.

or five cents and use that as training basically in confidence building. And so I did that. And so that was like kind of this long-term goal setting where if like the goals are like the overarching goal of sending everything in Colorado, that's always present. That's still never gone. But like the intermediate goals of like.

Megatron is a super long-term goal for me, you know, as far as like the boulders go. It's completely different than some V14 that I'm like, I've been saving that because I think I could do that one really, really fast. And then, it's perfect today. Cool. Bang it out. Great. I'm psyched. Did a hard boulder. Goals moving forward. Added to the box, spilled my bass a little bit more.

And so that goal setting piece is like one of the parts of that. But it's like how you actually implement that. That's like the level four beta, I think.

Ollie Torr (56:44)
I really like that. I've got this image of like just a load of obviously dots or problems or something, but you've only got a certain amount of flashlight that can light them up. So it's all just, it's moving in a time where you're like each one has to like go in a session. And if that...

Drew (56:58)
That's a really, really

good analogy. I really like that. Yeah. You only have so much bandwidth, so apply the bandwidth in the most optimized way.

Ollie Torr (57:02)
Yeah, it's kind of... That's the...

Yeah, yeah, because you could just, like you say, you know, sniper it one after another, but you're kind of looking for a bit of a flashlight on each one at a time. And if it's not ready to be in there, you move it on to the next one. How do you decide... How close do you have to be to decide it stays in the flashlight?

you go once you might if it's bad conditions and it's like how do know that that deserves to stay in your 10th slate.

Drew (57:31)
So usually two sessions is enough for me to like, or three sessions. I'd say two for like 14, 15, maybe 16 boulders, generally speaking, is enough to know like how long it's going to take more or less.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that.

Ollie Torr (57:44)
And you show zero

bias to what goes on the list in the first place. It's like, will, everything needs to go on there to begin with.

Drew (57:50)
Dude, I wish I could take this is hardwired into my room straight over there. I could just walk my thing over and show you my

Ollie Torr (57:57)
yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've got your location squares. Is that a location, but in each box?

Drew (58:01)
Yeah, like area or whatever. like, yeah, bear lake corridor, Alpine. That's like chaos and Emerald and kind of all that shit. But yeah, so I just.

Ollie Torr (58:02)
Area, yeah, yeah.

So there's no judgment on here, which is

quite interesting. There's not like any kind of symbols to be like crimpy or nasty or anything like that. It's just everything's on there.

Drew (58:19)
Yeah, it's on the list.

Yeah. And so it was like this weird, gamifying it. God, I just I get to go across something off the list. Holy shit. Like just turn it into this big deal. But it works. like it's in my room. It's like the first thing I see when I walk in my room all the time. It's always there, you know, no discrimination against boulders. There's this one dino boulder for my buddy Charlie that's like it's like.

It's like nine. I'm like, dude, I'm never going to do that. There's no way. But it's on the list, so maybe maybe I'll figure out some nasty way to get through it. But it's like fun. You know, you do that and then you get exposed to like a lot of boulders that are your anti style, which is kind of like that's a huge part of climbing. Like. I feel like so many clients like.

uncomfortable in a sense. Like, like, it sucks, you know, being like, I normally climb V8 blah, blah, this one v5 is kicking my ass. Why? Like, I don't think it's a bad thing to get frustrated at that. You know, it's, it's fine. I think

Ollie Torr (59:15)
It's very

nice way of seeing it's challenge for challenge. If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be hard. It's because rather than being defined by grade, you're being defined by challenge. And even though it's an ironic thing to say that considering you've got a V14 and above board, but the whole point is that it's undiscriminative challenge rather than...

Drew (59:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was just an arbitrary benchmark.

You know, was like, if I do 13, that might be a lifetime to get through. Like there are so many, I don't actually know if that's achievable. I mean, it probably is, but like, let's keep the scope a little smaller first, you know? But more like with...

average like, you know, my coach that whole anti style thing like that was me growing up, dude. He's basically like, you're bad at this. This is all we're doing now. And so yeah, being super short, he would like measure my wingspan, like once a month, like when I started growing, and you'd set these fucking

that I could not span between the holds or side pull to side pull and I couldn't reach the feet. So I was just on these, I was climbing 514 already at that point and I could not do gym 512 sometimes because of the way they were set. And it sucked. But I just kept doing it. And so, yeah. But I guess with like...

Ollie Torr (1:00:20)
So do you... That's a good coach.

Drew (1:00:27)
you know, your average climber or something, it's harder to lean into stuff like that because it's harder to like understand that the payoff is actually really worth it, you know? You just feel the fuck, like, you know, this is so hard, why am I doing this? Like, I'd rather just stick to what I'm comfortable at, you know? But if you get comfortable being uncomfortable, you know, that's one of the most valuable skills you can have as a, not even just a climber, like as a person, you know?

But kind of with that, at least, it ties in. If you set some stuff like that, like, I'm just going to do every climb in this area or something like that, or every V14 or harder, for example. Yeah, there's a lot that were not my style. And there's still some that I haven't done because they're not what I consider my style. definitely a lot harder and more frustrating.

That's where a lot of growth comes from, at least. And it makes you really good at figuring out ways to figure beta out around that. But that's most of it. I have one more piece, I think, to tie in.

Ollie Torr (1:01:26)
So that was level four is the Ole Miss level fill. Cool, right, it together for the full level four.

Drew (1:01:28)
Almost, Yeah, we needed some backstory.

And then, the, guess what I could call the level four beta, that's when you're figuring out not the optimal beta for the move, but how to like stand on top of the boulder. Cause that's all that matters really. Like realistically, like, mean, yeah, sure. We like the process of trying things, but like, if I'm trying to do a project, I'm not trying to.

Like I'm not doing it with the point of like, my goal is to go through the process of prodging it. Like, no, my goal is to do this boulder, you know, what gets me to the top of this boulder as quickly as possible. Like that's what matters to me, you know, I don't want to waste time. and so sometimes like I have found, even if I have a beta that like might be the easiest to do that move, it might not be the easiest to the climb.

And that's really, really annoying to deal with sometime when you're just like, do I, do I trade up? Like, do I do something harder? You know, like I can do a move a harder way. Maybe it's more like static or something. Like what's the trade off with that? Do I bank on basically being able to continue being or building up strength by trying this folder and getting more conditioned to the point where the static beta is just better because I have more gas in the tank.

Or do I continue working the lower percentage move, for example? Or what if you have two completely different betas or something like that, and you're like, man, this moves where the crux is, or the crux is different at this point? Maybe those betas are.

one of the holds is better when it's like cold out. And maybe one of them isn't as temperature dependent, you know? Maybe one of them is really hard on your shoe. Like I've had that before where it's like, I get two days out of a brand new shoe on this heel before I know it's gonna wreck, you know? So is it worth it? Like, you know, if you're a...

just like weekend warrior and you're like paying 200 bucks for a pair of shoes, you know, is it worth it that beta in order to like potentially blow a brand new pair up in order for the send or some sense might be worth it, you know, like some might not be. Yeah.

Ollie Torr (1:03:30)
It's the same with skin, isn't it? It's like, I could try

this method, but I can't do a tape on that tip. But I can try this other method, and then I get like seven goes in a session. But I've got a pre-tape.

Drew (1:03:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or do I, you know, really lean into this one? Like, yeah, one my friends, Ben Blockmore, just posts, it's just pretty relevant. He just posted this Instagram thing doing the swarm. And like in his caption, he was like, yeah, like,

Like I did, I think it was Spectre, like some other boulder, I like underestimated like how much it was going to tag like my finger skin or something like that on pointer finger. gotta remember exactly what finger it was, but basically it was like, I might only get one try on the swarm or two tries maybe in like the next few days because my skin is so raw.

You know, and he ended up doing the boulder because he was really smart about how he was doing it. And he like, basically it was like, I need to try so hard to do that crux move. So if I have it completely wired after that, I'll take it to the top and he did it. And so it's like, that's smart. You know, a different climber might've just thrown themselves at the boulder and like, I'm fucking psyched, dude. Let's get after it. You know, let's go balls of the wall.

Cool, now you're bleeding, first try. Great. Here goes the rest of your trip. You gonna do it with tape? You know?

Ollie Torr (1:04:41)
How does you, what are

the key decision making things that you do? Like, so you turn up, I guess you've got, skin must be a big one. You've got energy, like in terms of the length of the boulder and figuring that out and linking the beats. So like, do you have like a tick list or is it boulder by boulder total feel for the tactics?

Drew (1:04:58)
It's boulder by boulder. Everything's

like, you know, and that's the part about being like really generalized. It's like, you got to be able to go up to anything, anything at all and be like, I can figure out how to optimize this on the go on the fly. Like I, for myself, like I'm not really an endurance athlete. like I have a background in rope climbing, you know, but if I don't train it, I lose it. And so some of my longer.

like I put out this series AMPM a while ago with my friend Alton and there's this like cave of linkups and you know my quest to do Colorado's like look gotta do this cave you know and Lincoln Lake is at like the caves out like twelve and a half thousand feet like you're really really high up

It's hard to breathe. Like even if you live there and spend all the time in the summer, like you still will feel it a bunch. And these really long boulders, man, I get like one try every two days. And so if I mess up a try, like.

I will not be able like I might be able to match high point maybe or get within a move, but I'm so blasted the next try. I'm like they're like I'm shot, you know, and so I know that for like really long boulders, if I have not specifically been like in the gym, just running laps and laps and laps, I might only have like one try, you know, and so that try better be damn good because I don't want to come back again if I don't have to, you know.

And so like what can we do to make that try as good as possible versus some other type of boulder where it's like this like super squeezy powerful thing like You know, this is all in my strengths like I do the show with bench every day Like I can throw myself at this for hours. I'm not gonna get tired So I just need to figure out the beta, you know as quickly as possible and then I can just throw myself at it You know, so each each boulder is different. You got to be able to recognize that

Ollie Torr (1:06:43)
After so much mileage, can you now see that pretty quickly? Like do you arrive at the boulder and you're like, right, this is this type of boulder, I need to behave in this way. Or is it like you've done all the moves at first and then you're like, cool, this is this kind of boulder, I need to act in this way. Like how quickly is it for you now?

Drew (1:07:00)
Usually I do the moves first, like things

are deceptive enough, it's like, you never know. You can guess, and you can have a really good idea, but until you like, for myself personally, until I feel the holds, feel the positions, and actually put weight, I just don't know. It's too iffy. So.

Like the first step for me is usually like, let's feel the holds, get in positions. Like I want to know everything I can about these holds like before I put weight into it, you know, then it's holding positions. I like static holding a lot. feels pretty nice to like figure out like how to get into movements at least like I need to be here when I stick this move or something like that. Okay. Like that's a data point I can work with, you know, and then I put, I basically like.

We'll try different moves. know, I kind of like doing top down. that seems to like work the best, but mostly it's just, I start on the easiest moves and work my way into the harder ones and try and get as many overlapping parts as possible. I'm like, okay, if I do this one move, like it feels good. That's fine. I know can do that move again that way. It wasn't taxing. I don't need to do that move until I try it again. Let's start here. Okay. Next is fine. You know, so I kind of do a process like that.

And then at least for like when I'm trying to do something in like a day or so, like the second I have all those pieces in, whether I've done the move or not, then it's go time. And that's the part that makes it like, you know, I'll have a switch happen where I go from being like, I could do this folder to like, I'm

to do this folder and that switch only happens when I get all those pieces in basically and I'm like I know all my beta like

Even if I haven't done this move, know exactly, I felt the holds, like it's not that bad. know exactly how to do that move or sometimes like, you know, some really like bear down crimpy move or something. Like I'll get close to it and be like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's totally it. If I get there from the start, I'm going to be psyched enough that I'm just going to mind over matter this thing. You know, like I can't, I don't want to try that hard or it's hard to try that hard if you're not like on the go, you know,

But so it's kind of just putting together a lot of pieces like that, where you've got to be able to isolate the beta really quickly. What holds am I working with? How do I move between those holds? What's the easiest way to move between those holds? OK, now I have a few puzzle pieces. What's the most likely way I can string those together in order to stand on top of this boulder right now? And yeah.

more or less what I do and it's like a game and the more you play it, the better you get and you can take lessons from previous boulders and apply it to the next.

Ollie Torr (1:09:18)
Have you ever started and switched on that go time where you're like, I think it's that crimp method, but I mean the heel one did work, but I'm gonna go with the crimped one for now and arrive with doubt and cost you the go or is it like once it's go time it's like no, for this go it is the crimp method and then we'll figure out if I need to adapt.

Drew (1:09:37)
I'm sure there's been times of like messed up beta or second guess, but usually like.

When I get that feeling of like, I'm about to do this Boulder, like I'd do it exactly the way I was planning on doing it. And yeah, that's like, it's like flow state every single time, you know, it's.

Ollie Torr (1:09:50)
That's pretty cool. mean, that's so that's level four. Level four is the standing on top. No, I like that.

Drew (1:09:57)
It's kind of like an abstract way of thinking about it, but it works the best for me. I feel like a lot of goal-setting books that I've read and whatnot, and other people I've talked to who kind of work in that space at least, I don't know. A lot of them kind of say very similar things, at least of like, you gotta have really big goals. Otherwise, you know.

people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. Like you can do some crazy shit if you like put your head down and grind towards stuff, you know, but you got to be able to stay on course and do it, you know? And so, I don't know, it's fun.

Ollie Torr (1:10:33)
That's the first time I've heard someone say that, not with a week and a year, it's a year and a decade, which is nice. it's kind of, a lot of what you said, like a lot of the levels, it stands out as obviously the first few are quite basic, but it's really counter to where I'm gonna be really kind of zoom out here, but a of a societal change, like you're pushing patience the whole time, you're pushing.

Discomfort, like I think so many people are just like so used to the comfortable and not used to being in that, you know, being comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Like you're forcing yourself to be patient. You're forcing yourself into discomfort by choosing a challenge level and just leaning into it. Cause you know, that whole thing of, well, I can, I don't mind getting a V15 or a V10, but that middle bit, you know, that's where it's going to be kind of uncomfortable. And then.

And then like you say, of like trying to hit flow state is like a priority. It's like level four is pretty cool. So yeah, another experimentation where you've sort of found the way.

Drew (1:11:29)
Yeah, I mean, just made sense to me, I guess. you know, it was like there's so many like, I feel like our entire conversation has been like, all these like moving parts that like somehow all work together, you know, because with that whole goal setting thing, like, you know, part of that came if I only have an hour or an hour and a half between classes to climb, I have got.

to be as efficient as possible. I don't have a choice. I'm not here to fuck around. I don't have time for that right now or something when I was at the boulders in that phase. So was like, how do I do that? It was out of necessity, I guess. It was like, this works for me because it has to. But I don't know.

whole like yeah uncomfortable point speaks to that as well like it's you know do you want to choose the hard path now to have an easy path later easy path now maybe shits a little harder later so I know what I I know what I have always picked basically

Ollie Torr (1:12:23)
It's a big, it's kind of a big passion point of mine. Because just because I spend, like speak to a lot of kind of younger people that are not being given the opportunity to be in that scenario very often. And then you, you see this kind of like, it's like when you see a very, very talented, younger person who just does not put it down later on because they've never had a challenge. And then you see the person who's grafted.

and just kept working away and then they just keep going and going and it was a slower pace from the beginning. So obviously you just said you're writing a book on this. Is this something you're passionate about sharing? Like have you shared this with friends? Have you got others on the path?

Drew (1:13:00)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's just like a, I'd love to get it done. Like I've got so many projects, man. you know, it's, it's cool. And like a lot of them, the ones I'm most psyched on, you know, are like not actually climbing hard right now. like this book stuff too. It's like right now, just the collection of Google docs and a lot of jumbled thoughts basically. I hope to get it done.

to what I would consider the level that I'd be happy with within the next few years. But it'd also be one of those things where, like, if I put this out, you know, like...

I want it to be worth it, you know? And I don't want to just like, yeah, here, let me just like do this. Like, that's kind of why, like I probably could have like released something already, you know, but it's just not good enough yet. And I don't know. Like the perfectionist in me is like, man, like this has got to be really like, I've got to hit all the points on this. Like, and there's still things that I like think about to add to it, you know, and.

It's just coming straight from me basically, call it like a big opinion piece really. But my hope is that people eventually get used to out of it and it's one of those things where like if you climb V2 or if you climb V14, it's helpful. That's the dream.

Ollie Torr (1:14:06)
That was the thing that stood

out then is I wonder whether you'll be able to do get it out 80 % and it's used or perfect and it never sees the light of day. Like do you think you will accept for that good enough?

Drew (1:14:16)
get it.

It's like define good enough, you know, like, it's asymptotic. But I would like, I wouldn't want to put anything out where like people reading it would be like, okay, like this could have been done better. It's like, obviously, everything could be done better. Like, nothing's ever perfect. But I would

I would be very embarrassed to put something out that would be subpar quality for what I would consider or expect of myself.

Ollie Torr (1:14:44)
Well, having heard the brief summary, would say I think a lot of people would appreciate it. So I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about, but I appreciate the level of thought that's going into it. Is that kind of, so is the level four, is that the kind of the, that topic you were talking about then, or is there something else you mentioned that you were wanting to cover?

Drew (1:14:49)
Yeah.

that was mostly it. was like just kind of tying in. Like if I was, if I, I feel like if I just jumped straight into like, without all the backstory of why, just like, you need to like figure out the easiest way to send the boulder and be like, yeah, no shit. Like, you know, but.

Ollie Torr (1:15:19)
I this is nice,

like you said, it's tied together a lot of your... It's really easy to say, I have done this training at this point and I went outside loads at this point and now I've tried to make the most of the hour and a half like you said, but what you've said there in terms of the process, the experimentation, the curiosity, all kind of... It is your playbook that you're building that just builds and builds and builds. I really like the flashlight.

Drew (1:15:42)
Everything's yeah.

Ollie Torr (1:15:45)
I've obviously heard of the challenge of setting yourself a grade or an area or something like that, like the circuits in Fontainebleau, those sorts of things, that they define that kind of multi-scale climbing. But the method of being curious enough to just be like, I'll come back, this will come back in the flashlight in a year's time. If I'm ready, I'm ready. I like that.

Drew (1:16:04)
I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I'm blanking on. But yeah, it's, I mean, it's kind of like everything, right? Like climbing is one of those sports that you could do your entire life, you know, like special. There's not too many things like that. And yeah, it's, mean, a lot of people love the feeling of progression and getting better. I mean, I know I do. It's like if you're, I don't know.

There's ways to like, think speed stuff up, know, climbing is still a very new sport as well. Like we know a lot about wrestling and running and swimming. We don't know that much about climbing still. And so I think it's like, as stuff gets more split up between like the comp scene and the outdoor scene and then training and different protocols and you know.

I think we're gonna see some really, really cool stuff like in the next 15, 20 years basically. So I hope so. What?

Ollie Torr (1:16:55)
What would you like us to find out the most? What's

the question? If I had done the research in any area that you were most interested in and you had a question that you wanted answering, what would it be?

Drew (1:17:07)
I don't know, you stumped me. Yeah.

Ollie Torr (1:17:09)
It's a hard one on the spot.

Drew (1:17:11)
Because specific things, you know, be cool and all. Like is there, what's the best diet for tendon strength or something like that? Is there things I can eat that are gonna make my skin super good? Is there research coming out for supplements that will heal your skin super fast?

you know, or can we get into like even more like meta shit or whatever? Like, I don't know. It's, really interesting. Like, cause I think there's just going to be more more stuff coming out basically. And, you know, it'd be really cool to see if like how, like body type training like starts working or, know, if we get really specific, like,

You know that Brian Johnson guy? He's like the billionaire, like trying to reverse age. Yeah, it's like, you know, obviously to each their own, you know, I personally think it's like a pretty cool idea. Like if you have that much money to like blow on that, like great, you know, he's like making all the research like publicly available and stuff. So it's like.

Ollie Torr (1:17:48)
yeah, yeah.

Well the amount

of people that blowing way more money on way less healthy things and then trying to make way more money from making people unhealthy, it's like a drop in the ocean of kind of abnormality compared to that stuff.

Drew (1:18:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's I mean, maybe the dude has like, maybe he's like, it doesn't really strike me that he's doing it to make money, you know. But I guess where I was going with that is like, there's going to be a lot of really interesting personalized research coming out of that, you know. So maybe like climbing and as an umbrella, all other sports, we start getting to that level of stuff like.

It's kind of the direction that like computers are going. Like they're getting that powerful. So.

Ollie Torr (1:18:45)
My head's jumped to your software project takes off, you become a millionaire and then you start experimenting on your climbing performance to that level. You'll love it.

Drew (1:18:52)
Yeah, I'll do it. You heard it right here first. If I become

a tech billionaire, I'll Brian Johnson. You heard it. Yeah. Rhino injections like straight into the collagen. Oh, it's funny. But I don't know, like all that stuff is it's pretty cool. Long term to like see and you know, there's no like one right way for anything, but it'll just be.

Ollie Torr (1:18:59)
Yeah, rhino skin on the fingers, tendons like a gorilla.

Exactly, exactly.

Drew (1:19:18)
interesting to see kind of like the future research that comes out especially because climbing is getting bigger and bigger there's more and more money into it all the time so who knows

Ollie Torr (1:19:25)
Yeah,

Drew (1:19:26)
Okay.

Ollie Torr (1:19:26)
great. think that

the last bit is kind of like, kind of what I'm most interested in personally. So I'm quite happy on like a completely biased conversation that I enjoy curiosity, experimentation and like I said, behaviors, because training isn't hard. It's not complicated, but it's the right training for the right person with the right reasons at the right time. That's hard. And I like that.

Drew (1:19:46)
Yep, exactly.

Ollie Torr (1:19:49)
day.

Drew (1:19:49)
It's the thing,

it's you get one shot on this rock. you know, I want to make my shot count, make it as good as possible. it's. I don't know, like it's it's like a defeatist almost way of looking at it. Maybe not defeatist, but like. It helps me a lot any time I start getting burnt out or like I don't want to do any.

Ollie Torr (1:19:56)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew (1:20:08)
I could die tomorrow. I'll get, I'm going to the gym.

Ollie Torr (1:20:08)
I think it's.

Yeah, I'd say it's a gratitude way of looking at it. Gratitude for the moment.

Drew (1:20:14)
Yeah, I'm grateful. Yeah,

I'm super grateful to be alive and be able to climb and experience all this shit. It's so much fun. I wouldn't trade it for anything. So it's like, yeah, just fun to see how far you can take it, you know, might as well.

Ollie Torr (1:20:28)
Well thanks so much,