When she is not making chocolate cakes for her friends or fresh bread for Soul Food Organic Store's customers, she is cycling up mountains, kayaking across lakes and running beside rivers to prepare for her defence of the Peak to Peak multisport race in Queenstown on August 6.
Maier won the race last year at her first attempt, in 2hrs 37mins 58secs, and had to learn to kayak to do it.
The committed long-distance triathlete recently finished 8th at Challenge Cairns and 4th in the Baise Outdoor Quest in Nanning, China, and if she has any advice, it would be to put time into trying something new.
"It feeds your soul," she said.
Maier credits her active lifestyle to her childhood in a southern German village, where she spent countless hours luging for fun.
"If I hadn't had this experience I might have been stuck in front of the TV. That's what I love about Wanaka. The kids at school get so much encouragement ... Everyone is so into the outdoors and taking their kids tramping," she said last week.
She has a staunch training programme and big race goals for this summer, but loves turning up at many local races, such as the Peak to Peak, where people are starting out or competing for fun.
She encountered similar community spirit earlier this month at the Ice in Line Winter Triathlon in Alexandra, where she was second overall.
The final leg required athletes to complete 15 laps of the Alexandra ice rink and Maier had not skated since 2007, when she took a spin around Diamond Lake. But she had skated a lot as a child.
"Gavin Mason won and he was very happy he had seven laps of the ice rink up on me before I got there because I lapped him three times. It was good fun. It was just great to see people trying ice skating," she said.
Snowboarding is one of Maier's hidden weapons. She took it up as a 19-year-old sports store worker and will snowboard the first leg of the Peak to Peak race.
But she secretly wonders if she could go faster on alpine skis.
"Maybe I should learn to ski in the next couple of weeks ... but that is unlikely because I'm going to bike heaps," she said.
Cross-country skiing is another latent and unpracticed talent Maier intends to unleash in the Winter Games winter triathlon on August 27.
She learned the classic discipline growing up in Germany.
"I'm quite excited to support the local race and show it's not just about performance and you don't need to always be training. Sometimes it is just fun doing it. It is good for your soul to do something different."
But before she tackles the winter triathlon, she's got a quick trip to Australia for the 376km one-day Kona Mawson Mountainbike Marathon.
Her challenge is to race for the first time on a "29er" (so called because the wheels are 29 inches (73.66cm) instead of the usual 26 inches (66.04cm)) and she has had to borrow a friend's bike to see what it feels like.
About the only thing the multisport community will not see Maier doing anytime soon is in-line skating. She would be keen. There is not enough good seal.
"I started rollerblading around when I got a bit bored riding my bike when I was 14 ... I needed a new challenge. Then when I was 22 I met some crazy guys who had skated 200km in one day."
That sparked a phase of intense training, racing and - you guessed it - skate marathons.
18TH PEAK TO PEAK
• Date: Saturday August 6
• Course: 2km ski/board down Remarkables Ski Area Homeward Bound run; 17km mountain-bike ride down skifield access road to Frankton Beach; 7km kayak to Queenstown Bay; 9km run to foot of Coronet Peak; 9km uphill road cycle to Coronet Ski Area base buildings. Total: 44km.
• Organiser: Geoff Hunt, www.southerntraverse.com
• Defending champions: Adam Milne (Christchurch, 2hrs 16mins 14secs); Simone Maier (Wanaka, 2hrs 37mins 58secs).
• Course record: 2hrs 02mins 51secs (Fergberger team, 2010).
