In the morning I make sure I look in the mirror without my contact lenses in, because it's much more pleasant. With contacts, I see wrinkles around my eyes and realise how much more important foundation is as I get older. I wish I had more time to look better. When I take my daughter to school, the other mums look glamorous with their hair and make-up done; I always end up reaching for a bobble hat.

I always wanted long hair you could flick, like the girls in shampoo ads. Before there were straighteners, I didn't have the right sort of hair to wear it long, and obviously short hair is more practical when you're competing. When I retired from athletics last year, I grew my hair into a bob, but if straighteners no longer existed, I'd have to go back to short.

I really like dyeing my hair. My mum let me dye it orange when I was six, with one of those wash-in, wash-out things. I haven't been my natural mousey brown since I was 13, and when my hair was really short I'd change the colour every two weeks.

I'm too much of a coward for plastic surgery, but if I could wave a magic wand and change something, it would be my ears. They are large and they stick out - my left ear farther than my right. I was teased by my family - there were always jokes about aerodynamics. Dad had sticky-out ears as a baby, and his mum used to tape them back every night. It must have worked, because his ears are flat now. I used to tease my parents that they never loved me enough to do the same to mine.