With 300 days of sunshine a year, plenty of pristine hiking and running trails, miles of biking terrain and a reservoir with a strip of sand that’s the closest thing to a beach this side of the Rockies, it’s easy to see why Boulder is considered one of the country’s fittest cities.

And, fittingly, Boulder has become an epicenter for one of the most demanding sports since, say, mammoth hunting or crocodile wrestling—triathlon. It seems, sometimes, as you’re passed by a herd of bicyclists riding faster that it’s legal to drive in some areas, or find yourself staring at yet another pair of impossibly toned calves at the checkout line in the grocery store, that subduing a thrashing beast might be a mere warm up for some triathletes.