Sarah Murphy has participated in a winter triathlon. Photo / Getty Images
This yarn comes with a health warning.
It's to those who enjoy snow for skiing or boarding at leisure in the fresh air, followed by apres ski staples of a hearty feed, a thirst quencher or two and a kip the moment your head hits the pillow - to avoid suffering recurring alpine nightmares turn the page. Winter triathlon is perhaps not for you.
Yesterday at Snow Farm in the Cardrona Valley near Wanaka, 22 energetic souls lined up to run 6.8km, mountain bike 12km and cross-country ski 9.5km. Andy Pohl won in 1h 39m 29s, with Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland second overall and first woman home in 1h 45m 23s.
The snow can make it punishing - think the two-steps-forward-one-step-back feeling of running on sand dunes, cycling through mud or skiing up a hill.
Add to that the fact four-time Coast to Coast champion Richard Ussher has competed in past national championships at the same venue and it reeks of a demand for mental and physical toughness.
The 35-year-old is a man of many sporting talents, having also represented New Zealand in moguls skiing for 25th place at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Ussher has not entered this year - he is currently in Finland, home of his wife Elina - but says it requires serious training.
"Just like an Olympic distance [summer] triathlon, it needs a high level of skill to be good across all disciplines," says Ussher. "It is usually short and intense, just under two hours. Most of the top athletes I know are close to their national teams in cross-country skiing alone.
"That is a difficult sport, regarded as requiring the greatest utilisation of the aerobic system with its upper and lower body motion. It is also very technique-based. It is easy to learn the basics but takes a huge amount of time to perfect. I am still terrible."
He says the mountain biking set-up also requires extra attention to detail: "You need different tyres, rims and suspensions for courses and conditions. On softer snow, you run lower tyre pressures to spread the load on the greatest amount of surface area [think tractors] both for grip and to stop breaking through the snow.
"If it was hard and icy, I imagine they would run studded tyres. The technique would be similar to normal riding in slippery conditions. It requires plenty of courage, too."
Sarah Murphy competed in the biathlon at last year's Vancouver Olympics and entered the winter triathlon as a demonstration sport at the inaugural Winter Games New Zealand (WGNZ) two years ago.
That was part of an aim to get more racing competition because biathlon and its shooting component are not part of the WGNZ snow programme.
"In New Zealand, it is hard to get regular competition at what I do so I take any opportunity to race, especially with the cross-country skiing element involved. I generally find the skiing fine but it's tough biking and running in the snow."
Winter triathlon has made some progress in New Zealand and Triathlon New Zealand chief executive Craig Waugh is understood to have flown in to observe yesterday but the sport is unlikely to be granted Olympic status any time soon.
Ussher says that is understandable: "The Olympic bid is well-intentioned but it is a fringe sport which is almost non-existent outside [mainland] Europe, Scandinavia and Russia.
"It has to establish a more solid footing among more mainstream winter sports like cross-country and alpine skiing in the same way triathlon had to establish itself. It was a massive participation sport before it went to the Olympics. A bigger profile is required."
In the meantime, the average snow sports fan is probably best to let the heart rate settle and let the business of apres ski begin.