TEAM DENTAL PAPAMOA DENTIST OLIVIA HENZELL COMPLETES THE AUCKLAND HALF MARATHON
On Saturday, I completed my third half marathon, this time in Auckland, beating my half marathon PB by 11 minutes. I was lucky enough to have the support of Team Dental behind me for the duration of my training. It was an early start (4.30am to be exact) to what turned out to be a very beautiful day. With over 20000 participants across all event categories, including full marathon, 5km, 10km, 12km walks and runs, Devonport was buzzing for that time of morning. The run itself was beautiful, goingalong Auckland’s waterfront and the definite highlight was the rare opportunity to run the historical harbour bridge.
I have a passion for striving for a healthy lifestyle, and exercise makes up a big portion of this. After a long day in the surgery it’s often too tempting to go straight home and turn on Netflix, however in our line of work with the high demand and focus you need to maintain throughout the day it’s even more important to exercise to uplift your mental health. It’s good to have a goal to strive towards, to motivate your training so I entered first the Mount Maunganui half marathon in August and then the Auckland Marathon in October. After completing five years at dental school, I was no stranger to hard work. In saying this it was definitely less than appealing to lace up and hit the streets when it was bucketing with rain outside.
All in all the run was pleasant, the last 5km are definitely the hardest, your joints are starting to ache, you can feel muscles you didn’t even know existed, but the motivation of all those go- getters running alongside you was enough to push through. There’s nothing more rewarding than crossing that finish line and being handed that bottle of powerade. When you get a medal put around your neck it completes that feeling of pride and achievement.
Congratulations Olivia!
