Jenny Meadows is a huge personality, always smiling, always keen to help, genuinely pleased to meet you – but tiny at just a tad over five foot tall.
Her racing weight is 47 kilos. Even so, she says she never adopts a strict diet and has a dark food secret: chocolate.
“I make so many sacrifices in my life for my sport so I don’t have a very strict diet, and if I want a cake or two then I will. I do like chocolate, though. Chocolate and cake, or cake with chocolate in it!
“And giant Cadbury’s Buttons which I always eat eight at a time – it is a bit of superstition as I run 800 metres that I do things by eights.
“I’m quite passionate about food, though I didn’t used to be. I used only to eat white-bread sandwiches with boiled ham in them! I couldn’t eat pizza, or Indian, my taste buds just weren’t interested. I’m much more adventurous with food now.”
But Jenny never drinks alcohol. In fact, her favourite tipple of choice is Ribena, and she has toasted previous successes with nothing fancier than a glass of water!
She says: “In Berlin after winning my bronze medal at the World Championships I got back late to my hotel room and while my family and friends were out celebrating I was sitting in my room with a bottle of water!
“I don’t drink alcohol anyway and I knew that even though I had just medalled, I was running in the relay at the Championships a couple of days later, so a quiet night in with a bottle of water was my celebrations!”