On October 2, 2003, a year after the death of her husband, Rosie Swale-Pope stepped out the door of her home in Wales and headed east. Her intention was to run around the world. Her intended route was roughly 25,000 miles long.
I discovered Rosie when I saw a photo of her passing through my town of Westport, CT. To get here, Rosie ran the coldest, hardest route possible, through Russia and Siberia and then down through Alaska and across the United States.
By the time I figured out how to contact Rosie, she was already 30 miles down the road. But she was kind to stop long enough to have breakfast with me, despite her eagerness to make it to New Haven and the Hole in the Wall Gang, one of the charities her run supports.
The thing that strikes you about Rosie is not just how energetic or athletic she is - both true - but especially how grateful she is. Everything seems to give her joy: the smile of a waitress, the interest of every person she meets, a simple bowl of pasta cooked in the parking lot of an auto repair shop.
"You can't be happy," says Rosie, "Unless you remember the world is your family. Doing an achievement just for the sake of the achievement makes no sense. You must do things for other people."
Along the way, Rosie has broken ribs, suffered frostbite, had pneumonia, been hit by a bus, been threatened by a crazed knife-wielding man, run out of food, endured temperatures of 76 degrees below zero, and slept outdoors in temperatures so cold that her toothpaste froze even when she stuffed it into her sleeping bag.