Readers have been fascinated by the progress of 19-year-old local athlete and former Drummond CHS pupil Kimberley Reed. Here, her father Scott Reed describes the rigours of winter training, and explains why we can all have high hopes for her progress to this year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
After finishing her last competition in the middle of September last year, Kimberley had a well-deserved two weeks off before starting back to the second year of her degree at Edinburgh University.
She also transferred her strength and conditioning training to David Hughes at Edinburgh University’s ‘Centre for Sporting Exercise’. This has proved to be a great move as her strength through key lifts like front and back squat, clean, snatch, bench and shoulder press has almost doubled in the last six months. Whilst her body weight has remained the same, she is now so strong that she can even outlift me! This will prove it’s worth in the coming season and help to prevent injury while she pushes her body to the limit in the first three months to reach the 61m qualifying standard and beyond.
She has been training five days per week while juggling her university course work, and has really worked hard over the winter. Training has generally taken place down at Meadowbank, outdoors and in all weathers. Not once have we abandoned a training session, even in gale force winds, sleet and pouring rain.
In January, we found out that the Council had commissioned work to be carried out in the throwing area at Meadowbank to repair the hammer cage, install a new shot putt circle and javelin run-up strip. Thankfully, while the work was going on, the helpful staff at Meadowbank allowed us a couple of afternoons per week to throw inside the actual stadium, which meant shutting off the arena to all other users. On the other days when we would normally have been down there throwing, we ended up having to use public parks … much to the surprise of dog walkers! We were initially worried that people would be upset with us being there, but generally the park users were just interested in what we were doing and we never received a single complaint.
Things are looking extremely promising. However with four athletes chasing only three places in the Scotland Commonwealth Games team, all her rivals will also have been working hard over the winter to try and secure their spot on the bus. Nobody wants to be the person left out of such a historic event.
Susan McKelvie is the current Scottish Champion, and is coached by previous Commonwealth Gold winner Lorraine Shaw. Having been selected in the first wave, she is almost guaranteed a place, provided she doesn’t suffer a drop in form.
Rachel Hunter is being coached by Scottish Hammer legend Chris Black who is a technical genius in this event.
Myra Perkins, coached by John Pearson, has gone full time in her attempt at qualification and is training at Loughborough University’s High Performance Centre.
Despite her rivals having better coaches and better facilities, I do feel that Kimberley will not only get her place in the team but will finish the qualifying period above her rivals … provided we can keep her free of viruses and injury. Why? I simply cannot believe than any of them have put in as much work, and in such shocking weather conditions, as Kimberley has.
We’ll soon see. At the Grangemouth open meeting on Saturday, she finished third after throwing a personal best of 59.89m. That puts her fifth on the Scottish All-Time list for the event. Things are definitely looking up.
P.S. Kimberley would like to thank the kind Spurtle reader who sent her a cheque for £350 to help with training and competition costs. It’s great to know that the people of Spurtleshire are so supportive of Kimberley’s Commonwealth Games quest.
