My day with a world champion

Note to self, do not arrange outdoor photo shoots in Edinburgh in January.

This was probably the only downside to the first official day of ESPC sponsoring Libby Clegg, the T12 100m world champion and paralympian. It was a hectic day with three different photo shoots (fortunately the last one was indoors in a nice warm studio), many interviews and a great session with the pupils of Trinity Primary school. Some of the questions and answers were:

1. Is there an athlete who inspires you? Jessica Ennis
2. Have you ever met Usain Bolt? No
3. What is your personal best? For 100m it is 12.5seconds
4. What time are your races at the paralympics? Not sure
5. What age were you when you started running? 9
6. If you were not a runner would you have done another sport? Before committing to athletics Libby spent a lot of time dancing.

After the Q&A session, Libby had a race against some of the pupils over 20m. I will not tell you who the winner was but will say that Libby needs to work on her starts a bit.

The best thing about today was hearing about the life of an athlete and the commitment involved. It also became clear that Libby is a very honest, open and confident person. Which all brought together should mean some very interesting blog articles over the coming months.

The worst bit was having to be photographed in a mock-race between Libby and myself. Nothing like standing next to an athlete to let you know you need to get into better shape.

If you want to keep up to date on Libby's progress over the course of this year, visit www.espc.com/teamlibby.