She calls it just a little run around the world, but it took her five years, 20,000 miles and 53 pairs of running shoes to jog across Europe, Russia, Siberia, North America, Greenland and Iceland, and so, really, there is nothing small about what Rosie Swale-Pope has accomplished.

Just months after losing her husband Clive to prostate cancer, Rosie planned her self-supported, low-budget solo road trip with great detail, mapping out her course, learning five different languages and training like mad -- she completed daily 30-mile runs, wore a backpack with increasingly heavy weights inside and pulled a large, rolling box filled with equipment and supplies. This "luggage" was her only means of support as she trekked across the globe -- she couldn't afford back-up teams and vans following alongside.

Why did Rosie leave her pretty Welsh cottage on her 57th birthday in 2003 for such a daunting and dangerous excursion (she met up with wolves in Russia and a gunman in Siberia, nearly froze to death in Alaska and returned home with a broken hip)? Well, because she was lonely without Clive, she wanted to raise cancer awareness and she craved a challenge.

"Running can take you to places that do not exist if you travel in any other way," Rosie writes on her website. "Maybe even more than walking, because you can get so exhausted, almost fail so every often, and are vulnerable and shaky. Sometimes when you are weakest, you can feel things the most strongly."

Rosie has successfully completed her five-year journey (and her book, which chronicles every step), but she's still running. The world run might be over, she says, but the battle for cancer awareness has to go on. This year, Rosie ran the London Marathon (in six hours and seven minutes), she's been running from city to city giving speeches, and on May 16, she began a 240-mile run from Tenby to London to benefit The Prostate Cancer Charity. She plans to arrive in London on June 5.

If Rosie hasn't yet inspired you to tackle your own physical adventure, maybe these final words will: "I've learned that when everything is lost, you've made mistakes and you don't think you will survive, you can just keep going and get through it," says Rosie. "I've learned not to fear things the way I used to. I no longer worry about how tall I am or how old I am. I've learned to celebrate life - and to live it to the full."