"Send Colorado" with the World's Hottest Boulderer, Drew Ruana!

What's it take to climb fifty V14 or harder boulders? Strong fingers and good skin, for sure. But it's Drew Ruana's distinct mindset and "Send Colorado" mission that has empowered him to find his own path to climbing success at the highest grades!

All climbers have at least one thing in common: we chase the high of a hard-won send. Some climbers may enjoy the process of getting there more than others, spending more time deep in projecting mode and making incremental progress on hard climbs that—after painstaking effort and incredible feats of patience—eventually go down.

These climbers relish in the grind, eager to return day after day to the same objective full of fresh hope for stringing together a new link-up. There’s no particular rush for this cohort, because sending tastes all the sweeter after a grueling wait.

Drew Ruana is not one of those climbers. At least, not by nature. He falls into the second category: those who can’t stand to wait too long in between sends. That feeling of success isn’t just a source of satisfaction; it’s fuel for the future. Frequent sends give climbers like Ruana the experience and confidence they need to keep upping the ante with each next endeavor.

Photos by Brennan Robinson and Cameron Hörst.

By now, almost every climber with access to the internet has heard about Ruana’s epic bouldering mission to take down every V14 and above all throughout Colorado. But not everyone knows that he’s been using this campaign as a way to prepare himself, physically and mentally, for changing his perspective on projecting.

“Because of the way my brain works, it’s hard for me to dedicate time into one climb,” Ruana explains. “I’d rather try something new every day. When I first started climbing outside after retiring from comp climbing, I didn’t have many climbs under my belt so I had a ton of options available to me. I didn’t want to narrow it down, I wanted to do them all.”

So he set out to do just that. Ruana recognized that he wasn’t in a place to commit himself to singular projects on extended timelines. He needed more exposure to outdoor bouldering across the spectrum of styles and a stronger foundation for his pyramid before reaching further toward the limits of his bouldering potential.

Ruana first formulated his plan of attack after a siege on Grand Illusion in Little Cottonwood Canyon. “I put 20 days into that one climb,” reflects Ruana. “It was about six months after I’d finished comp climbing. By day 20 I was completely wrecked; I’d started climbing worse and worse; I couldn’t even make it to the crux when I’d breezed that part in previous sessions. I was sick of it and ready for something else. My mind just wasn’t in it anymore.”

Rather than try and force his mind to get on board with projecting at such a low rate of return, Ruana trusted his intuition telling him that “it was best for me to take a step back and focus on volume and experience.” He knew that there was no use in trying his dream lines until the time was right and all aspects of his motivation aligned.

No matter your level, a little suffering is an integral part of the climbing experience. It takes guts, effort, and motivation to progress, and there are no shortcuts to getting around that kind of discomfort. But there is a middle ground between too little ambition and too much, where flow meets dedication and the light shines brightly at the end of the tunnel. Ruana aimed to find this sweet spot and sit in it, until he’d had his fill of quick ticks for a while.

Speaking of ticks, here's Drew's peerless record of V14 and harder problems sent over the past two years.

“I wanted to focus on doing all the other incredible climbs that were speaking to me, and come back to the ones that are going to take me longer when I didn’t have tons of others waiting,” he reasons. “And if I do all these climbs first, then those will become easier.”

By “those”, Ruana means boulders like Megatron, a V17 FA’d by Shawn Raboutou. Ruana spent 70 days on the boulder starting in October of 2020 only to walk away empty-handed. Toward the final days, his mind kept returning to the thought of how many climbs he could have tried (and sent) in that timeframe had he not zoned in on Megatron so intently. Ruana understands the importance of razer-sharp focus, he simply needed to build up stronger reserves first.

Now nearly three years into his “Send Colorado” goal, Ruana’s getting ready to summon the real try-hard. “I’ve felt a mental switch over the last couple of months and weeks,” he realized. “I’m better able to see the process through, I’m more willing to spend however long it takes. I feel more comfortable returning to the idea of projecting super hard and expecting failure, and the ebb and flow that goes with it.”

Ruana doesn’t plan on completely ending his sending spree anytime soon. He’ll hold onto side projects to keep his spirits up in between beatings on the mega rigs. But he is finally steeling himself for a bold return to Megatron later this fall.

No matter what happens this time around, Ruana credits his decision to prioritize breadth over depth these past few years for improving his climbing in just the way he needed in order to switch gears soon. “The more climbs I did, the better I understood what each climb would take and made me a much better climber for the future. I’m a lot stronger and more confident now.”

There was once an eight-day period where Ruana sent at least one new V14 (or harder) each day. But he acknowledges that “it’s not time to send something every day anymore”. To get where he wants to go in bouldering, strings of success won’t cut it anymore. He’s game to get more friendly with failure than ever before, on the way to bigger wins than ever before.

Drew's Favorite PhysiVāntage Nutrition

Since joining Team PhysiVāntage nearly three years ago, Drew has gone on to climb a higher volume of hard boulders than perhaps anyone else on the planet! In 2020 alone, Drew climbed three V16s. And, as described above, he followed this up with more than fifty V14 and harder problems sent in the last two-year span. Incredible!

But how do Drew's skin and finger tendons hold up to such a high volume of hard bouldering?

Drew credits his twice-daily use of PhysiVāntage Supercharged Collagen for helping keep his skin/tendons robust and quick to recover after hard sessions.

Drew starts every day with a serving of  Supercharged Collagen. When heading out to boulder he then prepares a PhysiVāntage cocktail: two scoops of Sendure-X mixed with Flow (electrolytes & BCAAs) and a scoop of peach mango Supercharged Collagen. Post-session or before bedtime, he then consumes a scoop of strawberry Weapons-Grade Whey mixed with a scoop of Unflavored Supercharge Collagen to kickstart muscle recovery.