Presenting Wendy: Why Age Is Just A Number

The Broadcaster Explains Why She’s Always On The Run.

- Wendyl Nissen

When it comes to exercise it doesn’t appear to be very hard to talk 1 News presenter Wendy Petrie into doing… well… anything.

There was the mud run TVNZ colleague Melissa Stokes talked her into doing last year.

“It was exactly what it sounds like,” laughs Wendy. “Running through cow manure, [it was] really gross and you wouldn’t want to hang onto any of the clothes you wore while you were doing it, but [it was great fun!”

Then there was the Spirited Women All Women’s Adventure Race in Taupo, which Wendy did with three other mothers. “We were all fit but we clearly needed to have done some work on our orienteering skills,” she says. “It was all run, run and no map, map!”

The course requires you to not only find your way out but also kayak, ride a bike and run in the bush. Wendy’s team took seven hours to do it.

“It was such a crazy event, but so inspiring to see all these amazingly fit women doing it hard. I came across Silver Fern captain Laura Langman and she was obviously going in the wrong direction so I stopped her and said, ‘Laura, let me tell you something. You’re going the wrong way.’”

And there was the Auckland Marathon which she did last year, completing it in a very acceptable four hours and 25 minutes.

“It’s probably got something to do with me heading towards 50,” says Wendy (46) of her exercising. “Some sort of mid-life crisis that makes me want to keep fit and keep moving.

“I can't believe I’m this old − nearly 50!” she laughs. “But it’s a good time to be – you can be strong, keep your career and work hard; there is no reason why you need to stop. Just a few generations ago that wasn’t the case for women.”