Heather walks away with the medals

Heather Lewis is a more than useful 1500 metre and cross country runner but in the last year she has undertaken a new sporting challenge and become involved in the strenuous world of track walking and is looking forward to compete in road walking at a later date.
Heather is just 14 and such is her prowess that she has already represented Wales in the Celtic Games at Sterling, Scotland and came second in the 1,000 metre walk behind an Irish girl who was more than a year older than she was. It was naturally a great thrill for her to be selected for this competition a year early and she is already aiming to repeat the process next season.
Of the Scottish trip she says that it was a great adventure and the event itself was superb because the audience was very appreciative and knowledgeable – and far bigger than she was used to!
So how does someone take up such a different sport as walking?
In Heather’s case she was ready to run the 1,500 metres for Pembrokeshire Harriers at the Gerald Codd Memorial Meet at the STP track when a group of them decided to take part in the walk, purely to pick up participation points for the Harriers against their rival clubs. It proved to be a good choice for Heather because she took to it luck a duck to water, came second – and has been involved ever since.

Spotted walking

The walk judge that day was Martin Bell, who was a well-known walker himself and is now a very good coach in Cardiff, who clearly spotted Heather’s potential because she travels regularly to be trained by him at UWIC and since her first time of over five minutes 50 seconds she has slashed her time to four minutes 49 seconds at this year’s recent Gerald Codd Memorial event.
The principle of race walking is that one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times and so it involves making sure that the rear heel is on the floor and the front leg must be straight. It inevitable puts some strain on leg muscles and hips so it is important that the correct technique is learnt and Heather is full of praise for the support she has received at the club and with Martin Bell.

Training techniques

Her training involves short distance sprint walks, short walking without using the arms or putting them above her head, race pace over the kilometre distance (the maximum allowed at her age), stretches and a variety of other exercises designed to focus Heather on the good technique which eventually leads to greater pace.
Since that time Heather has enjoyed a welcome winning streak in the walk at a variety of local meetings and no-one is more delighted than parents Richard and Dawn Lewis, who own the Clerkenhill Adventure Farm, and sisters Daisy, Josie and Poppy, who are all good at sports and enjoy things like running and gymnastics.

Talented all-rounder

Heather is also a useful gymnast who is coached by Rachel and Paul Hughes in Haverfordwest and plays at centre midfield for STP School and the county in hockey. Not content with that little lot, she also competes in cross country, having represented Pembrokeshire in Brecon – but it is in walking that Heather is showing her greatest prowess and wouldn’t it be nice to see her go a great deal further in this unusual and demanding sport as she gets older?