Round the world Rosie sets UK return date

3:19pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

Pembrokeshire round the world runner Rosie Swales Pope is back on the run less than a month after she fell and broke her ribs in Iceland.

The 61-year-old, who left Tenby in October 2003 for a solo, self-supported global circumnavigation, has also set a date for her arrival in the UK.

Rosie fell in the Icelandic wilderness after battling with severe weather conditions. She caught her ribs on the shafts of Icebird, the mobile sledge that has been her home on this snowy stage of the run.

She decided to follow medical advice and rest up, saying that she wanted to be 100% fit for her return to Tenby.

"I did not want to run through pain and everything to take so long to get better that I'd be hobbling on arrival in Britain.I want Icebird and I to arrive proudly in fine style," she wrote in her weekly web report.

"Very definitely be I'll a bouncing 100 per cent and dancing and doing high kicks for joy as I reach the finish in Tenby."

After three weeks of rest and recuperation, most of which she spent camping in Icebird beside Lake Myvatn in order to stay hardy, Rosie ran back to the exact spot where she fell and has kept on running from there.

This has actually added an extra 50 miles to her run but Rosie said it will be good training to tackle the final mountain pass between her and the Icelandic coast.

"One has to run this mountain pass fairly fast, between storms," she said. "There can be ice and blowing snow here until the end of May."

She then plans to take a boat from Iceland to Scrabster in Scotland, where she is due to arrive on June 18th.