Denver CrossFit Champion Turns His Gym Into the City’s First Hyrox Hub

• Colfax Strong, a downtown Denver gym, has spent the past several months building race-specific programming ahead of the city’s first HYROX event this November.
• Co-owner Chad Pinther won the 2025 CrossFit Games Masters title in the 50 to 54 age group and now coaches sled pushes between his own training sessions.
• Denver’s mile-high elevation and a wave of new HYROX markets this fall are pushing independent gyms across the city to build programming for athletes who have never touched a sled.

Chad Pinther Traded a National Title for Sled Pushes and Says It Beats Standing Still

Chad Pinther spent decades chasing personal records in track and field, wrestling, and two decades of international fitness modeling. In August 2025 he added a new title: CrossFit Games champion in the 50 to 54 masters division, won across a grueling stretch of events in Fort Worth. Now Pinther and his wife Esther spend as much time coaching sled pushes and burpee broad jumps as they do writing barbell programming. Denver gets its first HYROX race this November, and their downtown gym, Colfax Strong, is one of a handful in the city built to get first-timers through it.

“I compete because I’ve been an athlete my entire life and I want to be as strong and vital as I can be for my wife and daughter,” Pinther said after his 2025 win.

HYROX is a global racing series that pairs eight one-kilometer runs with eight functional stations: sled pushes, sled pulls, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmers carries, sandbag lunges, wall balls, and the SkiErg. Every course worldwide runs the identical format, which means a finish time in Denver means the same thing as a finish time in Miami or Berlin. The event is open to first-timers and elite racers alike, competing solo, in pairs, or in relay teams.

A Garage Gym That Outgrew Itself

Colfax Strong did not start in a 9,000-square-foot building with Rogue racks and a full row of Concept2 rowers. Chad and Esther Pinther began training clients out of their garage in 2018, a year before they opened the gym’s current location at 1516 Emerson Street. Esther is a former level 10 gymnast who also competed at the Olympic Trials in the butterfly. Between her background in gymnastics and swimming and Chad’s years in track, wrestling, and modeling, the couple built a coaching style around movement quality first and intensity second. That approach has carried the gym to more than 250 members and a spot on 5280 Magazine’s list of Denver’s best gyms and fitness studios.

The gym runs as a CrossFit affiliate and, more recently, as an official HYROX Affiliate, which gives members access to sanctioned programming, race simulations, and early registration codes for HYROX events. General manager Nick Law-Yue, who has coached for 12 years after starting in martial arts and competitive Chinese Lion Dancing, oversees a staff that includes a former college lacrosse player, a former competitive Olympic weightlifter and powerlifter, and a registered dietitian who coaches strength on the side.

Denver’s Altitude Adds a Twist Nobody Trains For at Sea Level

HYROX will hold its first Denver race from November 12 to 15 at the Stockyards Event Center in the city’s National Western Center district. Denver sits at 5,280 feet, and that elevation changes what race prep looks like compared to a HYROX event at sea level. Reduced oxygen availability at altitude means higher perceived exertion, faster glycogen depletion, and greater fluid loss at the same pace runners would hold closer to sea level. Athletes who train at altitude for months ahead of race day carry a real endurance edge once they travel to lower-elevation courses, but building that aerobic base first requires patience most newcomers underestimate.

Denver is one of several new HYROX markets added to the series’ fall calendar, alongside Salt Lake City, Tampa, and Nashville. Race organizers expect the Denver debut to pull competitors from across Colorado, including Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins, plus racers from Utah, Arizona, Texas, and the wider Midwest who see a first-year event as a chance to podium before the field gets deeper in future seasons.

What Denver’s Newest HYROX Class Actually Looks Like

Coaches generally recommend 12 to 16 weeks of structured training ahead of a HYROX race, which means Denver athletes serious about November needed to start locking in programming by late July. Inside Colfax Strong’s HYROX Training Club, that means sessions built around the exact race setup: runs paired with sled work, sandbag carries, rowing, and wall balls, plus full race simulations timed to the local HYROX schedule so members feel the fatigue of running on tired legs before they ever see a start line.

Members who sign up for the training club get early-bird registration codes for HYROX races and open gym access alongside the class schedule. Coaches also fold in personal training and nutrition coaching for athletes who want more support outside of group sessions, an approach the gym credits for both injury prevention and for keeping members showing up through a 12-to-16-week block that can otherwise feel like a grind.

From Barbells to Sleds, One Gym Covers Both Sports

Pinther’s own competition schedule has not slowed down after his 2025 title. He still trains for CrossFit alongside members chasing their first HYROX finish, and coaches at Colfax Strong say that dual identity, half CrossFit box, half HYROX training club, gives newcomers two entry points into functional fitness rather than one. A member who walks in nervous about barbells can start with HYROX-style conditioning instead, and one who finds the running and sled work too much on its own can lean into strength work until their engine catches up.

For a city about to host its first HYROX race, that flexibility counts for more than any single class on the schedule. Denver’s fitness scene will find out this November whether a gym built by a masters champion and an Olympic Trials swimmer can turn curious first-timers into finishers.