Rosie Swale Pope attracts attention wherever she goes – and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The 68-year-old resident of Tenby, Wales, along with her bright orange cart have embarked on a journey to run from New York to San Francisco to raise awareness for cancer and to honour her late husband Clive who died from prostate cancer.
Rosie Swale Pope and her Cart
Swale Pope, who was married for more than twenty years, feels grateful that her husband was able to die in her arms.
The days and months that followed, however, were bleak, the enormity of her loss sometimes overwhelming until one day she had a realization that completely changed her outlook on her husband’s death.
“You are at a crossroads. You can either be finished and do nothing and just hope to be curled up together one day in Heaven. Or you can try to fly the banner for him and grab life with two hands and live double and try to achieve his dreams as well as your own,” Swale Pope says.
This insight was the impetus for quest to run 3,371 miles (5,425 kilometres) across the United States. She says she is doing it to honour her husband and others impacted by cancer.
Since beginning her journey in October of 2014, she’s run an average of ten miles a day, taking only a few days off for two speaking engagements to help raise funds for her trip.
Swale Pope spends most of her days tethered to “iceberg,” her nickname for the nine-foot (274 centimetres) cart she spends most her nights in.
Some have called Swale Pope a super-athlete; a description she says is neither true or relevant.
On this trip, she’s met with cancer survivors and their family members at several hospitals, spoken at Princeton University and was given a personal tour of the Maryland state house.
Meeting different types people, she says has been the best part of the trip so far. She’s also looking forward to throwing out the first pitch at a local baseball game in Virginia over the weekend.
This isn’t Swale Pope’s first adventure. She sailed solo from the UK to the U.S. in a 17-foot (518 centimetre) boat and she has run all over the world. In Siberia, she came across wolves and bears and Alaska introduced her to frostbite.
While Swale Pope hopes to reach San Francisco by the end of the year, she says she’s determined to savour each step along the way.
Ventuno