At 68, Rosie Swale Pope isn't slowing down, she's running straight ahead—from New York to San Francisco—which doesn't impress her all that much. She once ran around the world.

She has no support crew on her run across America. Her only constant companion is a cart — an aluminum-framed, three-wheeled, Amish-built cart, loaded with 300 pounds of supplies — which she pulls behind her.

Everything she needs for the run is loaded into the cart, which she affectionately calls "Icebird." She zips herself into the Icebird at night, and prepares meals by cooking on a camp stove. She logs into her computer to keep in touch with family back in the UK and keeps plenty of dog biscuits on hand for the thousands of pups she meets along the way.

"It may looked cramped, but after running 10 to 27 miles a day, Swale Pope told Reuters, she has no trouble going to sleep, "Usually, [I'm] so tired when I stop, I'll go to sleep, bang-wallop! And I'll wake up feeling refreshed, full of beans."

Swale Pope had been a runner most of her life, completing marathons, ultra-marathons and cross country runs (like Nepal to Iceland) up until her mid-50s. But running took on new meaning for her in 2002, when her husband, Clive, died from prostate cancer.

"When Clive died, I could have curled up into a ball," she told the Baltimore Sun. "I was heartbroken. But if you give up, it never gets any better. I'm a happier person because I've gone on, and done challenges."

She turned those challenges into opportunities to raise cancer awareness, while raising money on her website for groups fighting cancer.

Her most famous was a year after her husband died — a 20,000 mile, five-year, around the world run. She raised $372,000 (£250,000) for Russian orphans and cancer research — and received the Order of the British Empire for her efforts.

The Welsh grandmother figures she's run 50,000 miles during her lifetime. In addition to that, she sailed around the world with her first husband and their two kids, and became the fourth woman to sail solo across the Atlantic.

Mrs. Swale Pope started her U.S. run from New York in October. She figures it'll take her nine months to reach San Francisco. You can follow her on Facebook, but don't expect her to sit still for long — even after she completes her run across America.

As she told the Baltimore Sun, "At my age, you can't wait for the world to come to you. You have to come to the world."

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