As a child,hopelessly unsporty,Rosie Pope nerve made the hockey   team. But at the age of 57,in 2003, she ran around the world. Setting off from home in Tenby,she returned four years, 10 months later,having run 20,000 miles through Europe, Siberia,Alaska,Canada,America,Greenland and Iceland. Moreover,she did it alone with a small cart of food and equipment - running with it through the frozen wastes of Siberia and the streets of New York. Now Pope is at it again: she has just completed 26 marathons in 26 days. "If I can start out again at 63 and feel like 36,then anyone can,because I don't think I'm a superwoman.I'm a very ordinary person,"she said. Pope spent her early childhood in remote County Limerick in Ireland with her grandmother after her mother died when she was two.Her father also died at the age of 47.Pope didn't go to school regularly until she was 13;she was encouraged,instead,to spend her time outside,learning about the natural world.But it was her first husband,Colin Swale,a fearless sailor,who introduced her to the world of extreme adventure.In 1973 they became the first to go around Cape Horn in a catamaran .And in 1983,after they separated,Pope went on to sail across the Atlantic alone.After discovering running at 47,she spent her fifties completing a series of marathons in far-away places. But it was the death of her second husband,Clive,a businessman and photographer,from cancer,that triggered her biggest challenge so far. She had been thinking of running for cancer awareness,when"something broke through my grief as I was liiking at a world map on the wall.I thought I could do this."Pope is now a motivational speaker."Running around the world,or going to the moon or whatever,is only a metaphor ,"she says."The most extraordinary adventure is every day of your life." When did Rosie Pope begin marathon running?
At the age of 57. Around the age of 50. When she was 63. In the year 1983.