Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes. Rosie Pope Swale

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СКАЧАТЬ World. I didn’t attempt to try and secure large financial sponsorship, as I felt I would not succeed and that I might spend all my savings just trying to get it. Above all, I was still much too sad to ask anyone I did not already know. The thought of discussing Clive’s death and details for sponsorship with strangers was something that appalled me, and I would not do it.

      But I did have a fabulous ‘A-Team’. Eve, James and my great friend Catherine in London got going with the research. Catherine also got her beloved cat Nedd to cross his lucky black paws for me.

      Steven Seaton, publisher of Runner’s World UK, had always encouraged me to write by commissioning pieces about my running adventures in the past, such as my run across Romania when I’d met all the vampires. I didn’t even have to ask before he said that Runner’s World would sponsor me.

      Ann Rowell, one of my best running friends, offered to do my accounts and keep an eye on things while I was gone as my family lived far away. She would also fend off the bailiffs by paying bills from my account. She and another great friend with whom I used to go running, Kath Garner, had joint Power of Attorney, drawn up by my solicitor. Ann optimistically said this was useful because they could go and rescue me if ‘I became unconscious and senseless in Siberia’.

      Ann also suggested that Matt Evans, an amazing runner who ran ten marathons in ten days, manage the rental of my house through his company, the Pembrokeshire Coastal Cottages Holiday Letting Business. It was sound advice. I would need all the income I could get.

      As for equipment, I asked those whose kit I had used and trusted for years for their advice, and they helped me without question. Saucony UK sponsored my shoes; Peter Hutchinson and his team at PHD Designs in Staybridge designed the sleeping-bag system that allowed a temperature-range of 100° on the run, from the little down Minimus bag for the summer weighing only 450gm to the extreme cold-weather sleeping bags that would save my life at temperatures colder than −60°C.

      Terra Nova, whose products I’ve also used for years, sponsored the tents for the journey, including their invaluable Saturn bivvi, my home for the whole of the first winter, weighing only 2lb 2oz. I had a thirst-point filter bottle so I could drink any water; and so on. Such simple things would make a huge difference.

      I had to really plan what I was going to take. Even small, down-to-earth items were important, such as face care. All I took was sun block and Vaseline—later to be replaced by whatever its local equivalent was in any country I happened to be in—and my wonderful friend Eva Fraser, who runs the Facial Fitness Clinic in London, taught me facial exercises to help circulation, looks, mental attitude and how to care for my face without carrying jars and potions. Every part of the body is important.

      Getting my Russian visa was a problem. Because of the length of my run the only type of visa that would work was a one-year Russian ‘business’ visa, but as the manager of one of the agencies pointed out, there aren’t many business meetings in the depths of the Siberian forests and the people who arranged things for him in Russia would get into trouble. The police would have them and me up without question. I’d be put in jail. The letters of commission and good character, provided by Runner’s World, my book agents Watson, Little Ltd and the organisers of the Daily Telegraph Adventure Show I’d proudly presented, seemed to frighten the agencies even more because they made it clear that I was serious about the run. Someone suggested I just say I was ‘going to Russia to do research’ on running, but I decided I had to be straightforward as to why I wanted the visa: it was the only way to manage anything regarding visas and papers, and it was vitally important that it was all properly arranged.

      As part of my training, I ran another marathon—the Loch Ness Marathon—in September 2002. I was getting fitter and used to being outdoors all the time. I could feel at home anywhere. The night before the race I camped the night beside Loch Ness. The water sparkled as the stars came out, looking mysterious enough for one to believe anything. I thought of putting biscuits out for Nessie but fell asleep instead so she never came to visit after all.

      I was lucky enough to get booked to give a few talks to help with funds and to begin promoting cancer awareness.

      An especially memorable occasion was a lunch function at the Bolton and Bury Chamber of Commerce. I was training hard now, and had gone running and camping in the hills the night before, getting my one good blouse all crumpled as I had lain on it by mistake. No problem. I ran down into Bury town early and popped into McDonald’s because they have nice hard seats in the cafe where I could sit on the blouse to iron it. I was very pleased with the ‘ironing’ and got a bit carried away and decided to wash my hair in the ‘Ladies’ while I was at it. Unfortunately I got my head stuck in the machine on the wall on which there were signs saying ‘soap…hot air…water’. To my relief, two girls came in and rescued me, so that was fine. The hazards of modern life! But it taught me a valuable lesson in the gentle ‘art of making do’ or improvisation that was going to be very useful during my run.

      The talks helped boost my courage. The Chairman of the Chamber even posed with the Saucony shoes around his neck along with his golden chain to show solidarity with my goals, and then they put them around my neck for a photo for their journal and stood there cheering me—while a bishop who was there blessed the shoes, wishing for God to go with me—as indeed he did.

      By now I was beyond feeling excited or apprehensive; I had no time to be introspective. Every single second was taken up getting ready to go, thinking about it, trying to get everything right.

      At Christmas I stayed at home, spending hours calling my family, then set off on my fine new bicycle, bought for me by my friends Chester and Jean in Pembroke Dock. I passed much of the day cycling, visiting friends, only spending a little time with them, and then on to the next—being careful not to drink too much wine! I couldn’t quite yet bear sharing a whole family Christmas—it hurt somehow—but then suddenly in the New Year I knew that Clive was happy, having a riot of fun up in heaven, and that I didn’t have to worry. He was with his friends.

      I decided to set off in October 2003. I’d have to run through the European winter to Moscow but that would give me the whole of the first summer to get through as much of treacherous Siberia as I could before winter came again.

      Siberia derives its name from ‘Siber’—land without end—and that is what it’s like. I could not escape the Siberian winter since it is so vast and the distances too great, but I wanted to run across as much of it as possible before the extreme cold set in. It was likely to be −40 or −50°C but the temperatures could plummet as low as −70°C in Eastern Siberia.

      I planned my route, through Holland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia to Riga, and then from Riga to Moscow and on from there to Siberia—and beyond. I did not have the big Russian visa yet, but was working on it. For Lithuania and Latvia, British subjects do not require visas. If the Russian visa problem got solved, there was just a slight possibility that I might run from Poland through Russian Kallingrad to get to Riga, as it was shorter than going through Lithuania and Latvia, but time would tell.

      My house-plants grew to the ceiling, thriving on neglect. The house dusted itself. I made a pot of stew once a week, eating it all the time, and got out so many maps and plans the living-room floor was always covered with them so you couldn’t see any carpet to Hoover anyway.

      The planning and preparation for my world run were all-consuming and there were promises to keep before I even set off. Clive and I had planned to trek in Nepal in aid of the Nepal Trust and the Rotary’s Club’s work in the isolated Himalayas. When he had been very sick, he had asked me to go up to the big Rotary Conference in Glasgow—and I promised the audience of 2000 that we would go to Nepal when he was better. As he had not been able to do so—I had to do this myself.

      So in April СКАЧАТЬ