Members of the New Zealand Nordic Sports Development Team began taking the popular European sport of biathlon so seriously this year, their husbands and partners have been blasted into the weeds every weekend as the women stampede out of the house and on to the Snow Farm trails.
The super-fit, masters athletes are now in the market for good quality, secondhand .22 rifles.
They are also encouraging more snowsports-mad children to take up the discipline of small-bore rifle shooting.
"The irony is, I always told my mother-in-law never to give my boys a toy gun. And now I am telling my daughter to 'Grab that rifle and shoot'," Lizzy Conroy (51), a mother of three teenagers, said this week.
Biathlon involves racing up to 20km on skinny, cross-country skis carrying a .22 rifle on your back.
Every so often, the skier must stop and fire at a target 50m away, with a minute added to their overall time for every target they miss. Alternatively, the penalty is to complete an extra loop on the ski course.
The women say it's a feat of cardiovascular, muscular and mental control to suddenly stop in a middle of a race, adopt a static or prone position and accomplish a precision task without twitching a muscle or upsetting your aim by heavy puffing.
Nadine Cagney (35), a mother of two, has been shooting for three years but is new to cross-country skiing this year.
The thinking aspect of biathlon appeals to her.
"It's about controlling your breathing and heart rate . . . I think it is a very disciplined sport and I think it's got great personal rewards, like the satisfaction of seeing that target drop down," Mrs Cagney said.
Soldiers invented the sport and held the first competition on the border between Sweden and Norway in 1767.
The modern history goes back to 1924, when military patrol was a demonstration sport at the first Olympic Winter Games.
Military organisations still produce some of the world's top biathletes and Wanaka's biathletes recently began tapping into the Australian Armed Forces programme (New Zealand does not have one) to improve their skills.
Mrs Conroy and Mrs Cagney travelled to Melbourne last month for a week-long training programme before the Australian Armed Forces Combined Biathlon Event, following an invitation from Major Terry Prudden, of the Australian Army.
They relished the chance to brush up their shooting, skiing and coaching skills. Now they are back home, they aim to build on their new international contacts, buy biathlon-specific rifles and put together a summer training programme for the masters group and about 25 younger athletes who started the sport last year.
A trip to Canada to train and compete is also being discussed.
Mrs Cagney was enticed into biathlon when she met Mrs Conroy at a smallbore shooting club night last season.
Mrs Cagney has been competing in the sport for three years and has quickly established a competitive reputation by winning or being placed highly in competitions.
Mrs Conroy, the New Zealand Nordic Ski Team manager, had brought a group of skiers and a laser rifle in and was encouraging juniors to give shooting a go.
Mrs Conroy saw Mrs Cagney shoot and invited her to join the master's biathlon team and learn to cross-country ski.
"I had seen it on TV in my teens . . . It had always interested me but I never did anything about it. I never though I would have the opportunity to do it," Mrs Cagney said.
Small-bore shooters aim for the centre of the target. However, in biathlon, the shooter just has to hit the target anywhere so it flips over.
However, aiming for the centre is better because there is a better chance of flipping the target.
In Australia, Mrs Cagney found hitting the target dead on was something she could do quite well. Her emphasis next year really must be on skiing, she laughed.
"Going to Australia was huge because they are just that more ahead of us in the sport. It gave me a taste of what to expect, skiing with a rifle on the back, to unloading the rifle, to taking aim and hearing the metal pinging. Now I am wondering what to do. It's a choice between small-bore or biathlon. With two small kids, I might find I am never at home," she said.
Mrs Conroy is in her fifth season with the New Zealand Nordic Ski Team, which recently changed its name to the New Zealand Nordic Sports Development Team to encompass other snow-sport options being developed here.
Her junior charges were encouraged to take up biathlon last year when an Australian coach, Bob Cranage, organised a mini-transtasman tournament for them when made their annual trip to the Australian Hoppet.
Several Wanaka cross-country skiers were hooked so to support their new interest, Mrs Conroy decided to develop the masters programme last October and hunted out a laser rifle for practice.
Ideally, though, to be true to the sport, the masters' group would like biathlon-specific rifles.
A biathlon .22 rifle needs to be able to take five-round magazines. It cannot be lighter than 3.5kg, the trigger pull cannot be lighter than 500g and it needs to be modified for the sling and harness.
"We can certainly adapt and use laser or air rifles but in the long run why do that? If you were going to play golf, why would you use hockey sticks?" Mrs Conroy said.
The daughter of an avid deer hunter had studiously avoided hunting trips all her life and had a dislike for toy guns.
But with some experience in small-bore rifle shooting now under her belt, all that has changed.
She has completed her gun licence, is planning to buy her first .22 rifle and is building up her coaching accreditation and qualifications.
Mrs Conroy has also attended coaching workshops in Australia and Canada and met Maj Prudden, who invited her to last month's armed forces training camp in Australia.
Mrs Conroy said other clubs showed that a consistent masters group helped younger athletes achieve their ambitions.
With seven women and one man in the Wanaka group, Mrs Conroy felt the fledgling sport was in good heart.
"I truly believe it is something that could grow. It is great for rural kids who like to shoot rabbits and do skiing. And it is affordable.
"It's another sport on snow, something else to do on snow," she said.
Three key mentors had also helped: smallbore rifle shooter Ernie Maluschnig, Canadian biathlete Sarah Murphy (who hopes to represent New Zealand in biathlon by virtue of her mother's nationality) and Romanian biathlete Narcis Popa, who helped build the range at the Snow Farm this winter.
This summer, cross-country skiers and biathletes will be encouraged to keep up their shooting practice while cross-training in other disciplines.
So don't be surprised to see Mrs Conroy and company out running and mountainbiking on the Pisa Range with rifles on their backs.
• Interested? Contact Lizzy Conroy: manager@nordicnz.com.
