Mary Sebert: Our 40+ Original Sweetheart
Mary was our “original Sweetheart,” so designated by your
friendly editor for our 2002 Valentine special edition of The Last
Mile. Captain Haeder and all the Club machos unanimously endorsed
this designation. Thus, however many Sweethearts we acknowledge this
Valentine season, Mary will always be our “original.”
As most of you are aware, Mary is in her third year of Peace Corps service
in Romania. She has been a devoted correspondent and launched the newsletter's “Letter
to the Editor” (see her most recent letter from Moldova and Ukraine
in this issue). After two years of service, last summer during her one-month
home leave, she joined her many BHRC friends at the Big Horns run where
she ran a 30km race and experienced her first hash.
Mary is a nurse with RN and BSN degrees from SDSU and an MPH from the
University of Oklahoma. Before Peace Corps, she was based out of Spearfish
and oversaw nursing programs for Banner Health Systems' hospitals in
five states: CA, KS, NE, NV and SD. Banner sold out their Northern Plains
units, so Mary headed to the Peace Corps and Romania.
She had the international bug early. During the summer of 2001, she returned
from a delightful backpacking trip to Europe with her sister and brother-in-law.
They visited Germany, Switzerland and Italy in 18 days. She ran trail
runs in all three countries, including runs in the Alps. She especially
enjoyed Italy where they traced the history and observed the art of Michelangelo
and Leonardo DaVinci. The trio enjoyed a traditional (topless) Mediterranean
beach scene.
While Mary is a very experienced runner, she did not join BHRC until
June 2001 at Captain Haeder's Hosted Fun Run. Her first race was a 10K
at Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1998. She placed third in her division. She doesn't
keep logs but runs approximately 25 miles a week year-0round. She quit
for a period in 1995 but is now fully re-engaged. She has run four Black
Hills Marathons, as well as the one in Seattle. She ran her first marathon
in 4:12, has been very consistent with 4:02 in her other three and set
a PR in the 2001 Mt. Rushmore International Marathon with a time of 4:00:02.
She has also run two 50K ultras in the Big Horn Mountains. Her favorite
run was Bridger Ridge near Bozeman, MT. This was a 20-mile course over
challenging terrain. Runners wore bicycling gloves to protect them when
they fell on the trail. She travels extensively and normally runs alone
but with friends on weekends when she is home in Spearfish or in Romania.